Monkagedi Gaotlhobogwe
17 December 2008
The Botswana Tourism Board (BTB) is embarking on a unique project to sell Botswana music to the international market.
A first of its kind, the project has seen the board approaching 10 of Botswana's musicians, and signing a five-year deal that sees their music compiled in a unique Audi release, that the board sends out to 500 clients around the world.
BTB marketing manager, Joe Motes says they paid market rate fees to the featured artists because they recognise intellectual property and copyright.
In the compilation sent out as a Christmas gift to the international customers and partners, Motse says they hope to market Botswana sounds.
"We opted not to send our customers the normal Christmas cards. The packaged CD will last forever. Hopefully they will cause people to enquire about where they can find the music, because we are distributing it the whole world as a Christmas gift," he said.
The featured musicians are guitarist Stampore, with his popular song, Re Botswana. San artist, Any, with her hit track, Sheep along with Maxi's Kalahari, are the only women traditional musicians. Male traditional musicians featured here are Gong Master Vs Ditiro, with their hit track, Makanyane.
Vomit, with his hit track, Thobane, is also featured. The latest material comes Ditiro Leero's newest release, Mme Mpeole Ditedu. The featured track from Ditiro's release is Borre. The track is also being used by the BTB in their international adverts, running in media such as CNN, Dstv, BBC, to name a few.
Besides traditional music, the only other genre featured in the compilation is jazz, where Punah Gabasiane (O Rile O A Nyala), Nono Siile (Nthekele ring), and Lister Boleseng (Malome).
Motse told Showbiz that the aim is to make the CD compilation an annual thing. However, he emphasised that they do not have any intention to distribute and sell copies of the compilation CD. " Ours is not to sell. We are not in the music business. The agreement we signed with the artists is not to go commercial."
Motse said they would not entertain advances from music distributors wishing to sell the packaged CD. "They will have to re-negotiate with the musicians individually," he said when asked if they would be willing to licence the music compilation to interested distributors.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Mmegi/The Reporter. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
