3. Middlemen? – or More? Entrepreneurs are people who essentially take risks, with the hope of a fair financial return on investment and because they enjoy what they are doing Successful entrepreneurship requires a good product, capability to take risks, along with good business decision making in order to create a viable enterprise.
22. Music CAN Make Money We have to change from being “in the music business” to being “ in the business of music”
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24. Music Makes Money AME Association of Music Entrepreneurs Produced by Linda Walrond May 2010 Music: Firefly by Kite Recording by Hit Island Records
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Notes de l'éditeur
The world of the entrepreneur can be high risk. It can also be highly rewarding. The musical entrepreneurs who took the risk on Rhianna HAVE been rewarded; unfortunately they were not Barbadian, so apart from the publicity Barbados has enjoyed, much of the monetary rewards have not found their way to local businessmen. Providing the tools and environment to make sure Barbadians capitalise fully on our musical talent is what the Assocation of Musical Entrepreneurs is about.
A number of stalwarts associated with the Barbados music industry pitched in to do the groundwork for the launch of AMEBarbados, raning from representatives from CRS and COSCAP to entrepreneurs from the most successful music promotions.
We’ve brought together a collection of industry players to guide the way forward for the organization. They include George Thomas of Hit Island Records, who also serves as Chair, and Kristen Broome, also from Hit Records. Two of our most important partners and facilitators are Invest Barbados, represented by Modou Diagne, and the Barbados Coalition Services Industries, BCSI, represented respectively by Project Leader, Natasha Boyce. While not represented on our interim committee, the Caribbean Export Agency is also one of our critical facilitators.
Other members of the committee are Darron Grant of Tropical Wave Studio, Anies Jordan of CRS Music & Media, Phil Phillips of e-Vision Concepts
Richard Skeete of Awesome Entertainment and David Waithe of Socaribbean. Dr Sharon Le Gall of Philip Nicholls & Associates serves in a legal capacity.
During the 8 months since AME began, we’ve managed to get a number of important projects underway. We have incorporated as a Non Profit Organisation, so we are finally a legal entity. Three of our members were also strategic in the formation of the Caribbean Music Industry Networking Organisation (CaMINO) which came out of a regional workshop hosted by C’bean Export in October 2009. CaMINO’s focus is to build and expand markets for Caribbean artistes and of course to build a regional framework for the growth of a Caribbean Music Industry. These members are George Thomas, Richard Skeete and I. I am the Co-Chair of CaMINO along with Howard McIntosh from JARIA out of Jamaica. We have provided intelligence to Invest Barbados in their quest to expand markets for Barbadian music entrepreneurs and artistes. We have indirectly or directly influenced participation at key trade shows and expos such MIDEM, SXSW, WOMEX & NACA. There is a Facebook page entitled Barbados at Music Expos that would have quite a bit of photos and comments featuring various delegations at the respective trade events. We would like to showcase some of the photos from that page. AME has also been working on a business plan and have solicited resources from the Shridath Ramphal Centre through Dr Keith Nurse and also Jo-anne Tull Lecturer of the Centre for Creative and Festival Arts from UWI, St Augustine Campus. That business plan will be prepared in time for our inaugural AGM in June this year.
Three of our members. George Thomas, Ricahrd Skeete and Phil Phillips helped in the formation of the Caribbean Music Industry Networking Organisation (CaMINO), set up to drive the ownership and export potential of Caribbean Music globally. Phil Phillips and Howard McIntosh from JARIA in Jamaica are co-chairs. CaMINO came of out an initiative by CARIFORUM-EU EPA Workshop in Martinique, and over 12 territories are represented.
one of our greatest achievements in train this year is our MOU with the National Association of Campus Activities (NACA). NACA is the largest college trade event in North America. We have built a relationship with NACA and have proposed to showcase Barbadian artistes at their 2011 National Conference in St Louis. This should strategically exposed and position our members into more than 1400 colleges in the USA. The estimated combined budget of these campuses is more than US$50 M yearly.
We’ve also established a presence on Facebook, which is growing rapidly, and we hope many of you here today will make the effort to contribute information about your activities and plans to it, and get involved in healthy discussion about AMEBarbados
Our immediate primary goal is to make the business of music make money, by way of investigating opportunities to do so at the product and job levels. It will be important that we participate in as many major global trade shows as possible – WOMEX, MIDEM, SXSW. The opportunities coming out of these trade shows are incalculable AND invaluable. Our 3 rd key goal in our first year is to push for 60 percent airplay of local content to be legislated – what xxxx so succinctly and wittily dubbed the “From Bout Hey” rule
In our 2 nd year of operation, AMEBarbados intends to work very hard to build new international markets for its music products, its artists and composers. We also intend to take the first steps to establish on-the-ground marketing campaigns in some selected international markets
We recognise that to change the whole philsophy and the way we look at the business of making money through music must change at ground level – that it must be inculcated in the very young. Our activities in our 3 rd year therefore will be focussed on establishing the basis for the attitudinal change in the schools, through programs specifically geard to achieving this objective.
In general, AMEBarbados will focus on establishing high industry standards. This is going to be particularly important if we are to compete successfully at the international level, and in so doing, we believe we will achieve our goal of establishing the music industry as a major contributor to national economic growth
I’m sure you’re all familiar with the old Bajan saying “Money makes the mare go round” – funding and investment are an imperative corollary to our plans, and one of our key, ongoing activities will be to ensure that access to investment money is a less painful process than some entrepreneurs may have found it to be so far. We intend to be taken seriously: as an organisation per se, and as a critical voice of the music industry. This objective can be achieved in direct proportion to our success in other areas we’ve outlined.
Are you still focussing on producing CD’s and ignoring Internet options like i-Tunes? Industry information is critical for the development of any sector; the music industry no less so. Our membership will be constantly updated on what’s new and viable in our business – from developing genres of music to innovations in the delivery of the product. Spotting early trends is often done through effective networking and collaboration, and this too will receive our full attention
We also plan the develop the infrastructure that will encourage and support the export of products and services that our members are actively engaged in.
