Tonight looks into the crystal ball of the South African music industry to try to predict which artists will make it big and what the new trends will be this year.
As has been the case for the past few years, the South African music industry is in a state of flux. We spoke to a few industry experts to see what they think will happen this year.
Sipho Sithole – founder of Native Rhythm Records: Live performances will continue to rise as the interest in live performances increases. All the big acts in this country released last year so it will be interesting to see who is going to make it big this year. Then there is the fact that the Department of Arts and Culture have increased Africa Day to the full month of May so there will be more opportunities for Pan-African collaborations.
Randall Abrahams – MD, Universal Music: There will be a lot of continental projects like with the AKA and Burna Boy collaboration. There will be influences of different sounds from across the continent with many artists working together from different countries.
Catherine Grenfell – 5FM: I am looking forward to Francois van Coke’s solo album. I am also looking forward to seeing what’s going on with those two professional rappers, AKA and Cassper Nyovest. I hope that at least one of our bands or artists breaks it overseas. I think we have a lot of potential for that. What we need is another Seether.
Lance Stehr – MD, Muthaland/Ghetto Ruff: From the deep hills of the Eastern Cape came a voice called Nathi. That’s it. Actually, in 2015 the gimmicks and untalented people who, in 2014, had their 15 seconds of fame will disappear. Real, raw South African talent will come to the fore and we will be happy as a country.
Antos Stella – Content Connect Africa: There will be more streaming services which is a plus, but there will be a resistance from the South African artists until a fair model is presented. They need to level the playing fields in terms of market share percentages.
Gospel is the best-selling genre for downloads with artists like Sifiso Ncwane doing very well. This trend will continue. There are also plans to introduce a streaming service that focuses more on African artists. Digital and live performances will rule and create all the revenue for artists.
Matthew Fink, creative director, Just Music: There are so many cool female artists coming out in 2015. This year alone, Just Music is releasing Sannie Fox who has a bat-sh** crazy blues album which will blow your head off. Van T is another vocalist with a great voice. She is a great songwriter in the indie folk genre, while Lakota Silva is straight up pop. These are very strong women and it’s going to be an exciting year for new women out there.
Deon Maas – Meerkat Media: I thought that when the record company died music would be free and we would have a huge explosion of innovation. However, all we have now is a bunch of cretins trying to imitate the record companies. We are in the worst position we have been in years. When the top rapper in the country posts tweets about his holiday in Mauritius, you know we have fallen.
We haven’t had anything new in years. Fokof-polisiekar is like 10 years old and kwaito is older than my mother. If I see how well the Nigerian music industry is re-inventing itself, I am actually very jealous.