The best investment a Caribbean artiste can make is in laying the right foundation of their musical business house.

By Marissa Williams &  Yaadman Etan

Some do it do it for the love, dem nah do it for the likes

Some do it for the love and still have to eat and pay bills.

Whatever the motivation, there is no question that biggest investment a musician can make in themselves is laying the right business foundation on which they build their musical house.

Brick by brick, the right foundation ensures that Caribbean musicians are ready for the right opportunities to get their music in front of global audiences.

Here are some of our tools for building the right business foundation for music:

• GET YUH VISA SET UP PROPAH

  • Don’t wait till a promoter is ready to fly you out to get  your documents in order. Caribbean artistes have a reputation for being promoted heavily on shows and then when the house if full to capacity, electric with anticipation the artistes are a NO SHOW. Why?  A lot of times because their VISA application got turned down.

• REGISTER YOUR NAME AND YOUR MUSIC

  • If Caribbean artistes want to make money off their brand and their music , then the first thing they have to do is make sure that the right people know what belongs to them. Take ownership of your intellectual and creative property so no-one else can.

• COPYRIGHT YOUR SONGS

  • Under copyright laws the second you write down your lyrics or record your song soothers can hear it, you are protected under copyright. In other words , no one can steal your shit!!

• SELECT A MUSICAL DISTRIBUTOR

  • Yes, its true in today’s overly digitized world, many musicians think they can get their music distributed on their own. But there is a whole lot that goes into getting music on international outlets such as Pandora, Spotify and the like. There is formatting, the right file size etc etc. Do yourself a favor focus on the music, let the distributor focus on …well distribution

• CREATE A DIGITAL FILE

  • We will go into details on this one later but just know that you should have everything ready at the drop of a dime…press kit, music in multiple formats

The average millionaire, has seven (7) streams of income. So weather you do it for the love or the likes, juts know that if you set up your business house right….there is an opportunity to completely transform how you make money from your musician with the right mix of creativity and business savvy.

Ask Spice Official, Beres Hammond, Machel Montano, Alison Hinds,  Shaggy or Bunji Garlin…if they think the steps above are worth any investment?

Source:

• Photo Credit: Google