viva música!

ZILI MISIK (Roots music of the African Diaspora)

Microfundo correspondent Amy Bracken talks with Kera Washington, bandleader for the Afro Caribbean group Zili Misik.

The all-women band Zili Misik is based in Boston and only occasionally tours outside New England, but each of its songs takes the listener on a long voyage through a spectrum of musical styles, and even languages.

The band’s name comes from the strong female Haitian spirit Ezili, and Haiti has the strongest presence in Zili’s songs, but the eight-member band’s focus is much broader than that.

Washington: “We’re definitely not trying to be a Haitian band. We’re not trying to represent ourselves as Haitian or as representative of Haitian music. We are representative of African roots and of African Diaspora coming together.”

That’s band leader Kera Washington. Washington says such music has a particular resonance with her as an African American, but she defines African Diaspora in the broadest way.

Washington: “All humanity started in Africa, so we’re taking humanity as an African Diaspora.”

In addition to Haiti, Zili’s songs use musical styles from Ghana, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Cape Verde, Brazil, Cuba, Israel, and the US.

Zili band members have eclectic musical backgrounds, and roots in the US, Trinidad, Japan, and the Philippines. English is the native language of all the band’s vocalists, but listeners are often fooled.

Washington: “Inevitably, someone will come up and ask okay who’s from Haiti, who’s from brazil, okay, who’s from.. because I think the assumption is if we’re interested in that music then it must be because we have a personal connection, and there is a personal connection,  but it’s not necessarily a biological one. It’s definitely a cultural one.”

Washington is from California and grew up moving around the US with her academic mom. Her mother got her into music early – piano, flute, choir… she even played the bass for a bit. At Wellesley College, she took music classes, but something was missing.

Washington: “I loved them, yet the music that I wanted to study wasn’t always included in those classes. The music that I was most interested in, this music of the Caribbean, folkloric music of the Caribbean was taught in the black studies department, so I went and tried to find out why, and in talking to one of the professors who became the chair, he told me about ethnomusicology and how I could study this music as music, as part of the music department.”

Washington began to work with Wellesley Haitian ethnomusicology professor Gerdes Fleurant.

Washington: “When we first had those classes, he told me you can’t understand music unless you’re inside it, unless you play it, unless you experience it that way, and walk around campus walking in rhythm, you know? And having three or four different rhythms in your head at the same time. You hear things differently. You understand life differently.”

Fleurant taught Washington percussion, which she now plays for Zili, and a fascination with Haiti.

Washington: “I feel a great connection to Haiti and also to what Haiti has given this part of the hemisphere, this part of the world, which we don’t think about often. We think about the poverty in Haiti, we think about the political strife, we think about problems in Haiti. We don’t generally think as a community about the richness of Haiti and the incredible gifts of freedom that Haiti gave, particularly to the Diaspora.”

Beyond Haiti’s extraordinary history, including a successful slave revolt that made it the world’s first black republic, Washington pays tribute to its contribution to the arts. As a graduate student at Wesleyan, she wrote about studying Haitian sacred music in a secular context. Then, as a PhD student at Brown, she researched a Haitian dance and music pioneer, whom she visits from time to time on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince.

But even under the tutelage of Fleurant at Wellesley, Washington’s learning went well beyond Haiti.

Washington: “So it started out in Haiti, but then we learned in my study with him about connections that Haiti had to all sorts of musical styles you wouldn’t think of, and that opened up my study of ethnomusicology and connection to other musical instruments and eventually led to Zili.”

Zili formed nine years ago, when Washington found the rest of the band through Craigslist and Berkeley School of Music. But the influence of Fleurant and those early days at Wellesley is still evident in Zili’s new album, which is called Zee’lee Mee’seek, spelled in English phonetics.

Washington: “People really respond to Erzulie, which is funny because it’s the oldest song that we have. I mean that’s the song we started with when we started nine years ago in my living room, you know in Jamaica Plain, in my three room apartment. We started jamming on Erzulie because it’s the first song that my professor, Gerdes Fleurant, taught me, you know, Erzulie, oh, Erzulie so, mwen pa genyen mama, mwen pa genyen papa. Yon sel petit la mwen genyen. Li tombe nan dlo.”

Washington: “That’s the song that I think people respond to, Erzulie, on this album, also Justice, which is an epic. Laught, it’s almost 9 minutes long. It starts out with a song from Zimbabwe, Nhemumasasa, so it uses the mbira.”

“And then by the end of it we’re in the land of reggae, so it travels many different places.”

Washington: “Our songs are political, our songs are historical, and they have to do with love but they’re not necessarily love songs, so to have a song like Kuma that speaks directly to love, or falling in love… how do I know that I love you? I feel it in every beat of the drum. I feel it in your smile, every line of your smile that I know is yours, you can continue to look, but you know you’ve already found love… It’s not a typical Zili song.”

 

This love song, which is about Cape Verde, grew out of a trip Washington took there on a grant for educators. She currently teaches integrated arts at a Boston public elementary school, and is on faculty at Wellesley as a dance and drum ensemble director.

Washington has been musically inspired by her travels to Africa, South America, the Caribbean, and Israel’s West Bank. Influences have also been brought by band members’ travels and contact, locally, with musicians from around the world.

Washington: “We want to combine all of these musics to provide a reconnection, to create a community that is heard in the music so that it’s not lost, it doesn’t become a stew, where you can’t really identify different musical styles but that you begin to hear all these different styles bumping up against each other and moving together.”

This method of using multiple musical styles, in a way that shows parallels and distinctions does elicit curiosity about their origins, which is kind of what Washington is going for.

Washington: “I like that people can see themselves in this music. I also like enjoy that when people who have no connection to Haiti, to Cape Verde, to Brazil, to California, that they feel that connection and it encourages them to go and find out why, find out about the music, find out, outside of Zili, where it comes from, why are people involved in it, what’s it performed for, what’s the tradition, what’s the culture, what’s it like?”

Support Zili Misik's microfundo project

Microfundo Brings the Kiva Model to Music

This post by Allison Mooney originally appeared in PSFK.com

Microfunding is emerging as a compelling alternative to big banking. Popularized by Kiva and other philanthropic institutions, we’ve also seen the model applied to creative pursuits with sites like Society6 and Kickstarter.

A new site called Microfundo aims to bring this model to music. Calling themselves “Kiva.org for musicians,” their mission is

“to support the entrepreneurial activities of independent musicians from developing countries around the world — championing undiscovered musicians who would otherwise not have the means to develop their music careers.”

Microfundo takes it concept directly from the traditional banking model–artists receive the full amount of their microfunding campaign’s goal, and Microfundo sells their music as downloads online as an advance against the loan amount. Microfundo will repay the full loan amount to fans plus will sell an additional 30% of the loan amount to cover their costs.

Their idea is based on the theory that, to become the next major-label star, an artist need only find 1,000 true fans - defined by Kevin Kelly of Wired as those who will buy everything produced by the artist. Helping artists build relationships with their “True Fans” is Microfundo’s real goal.

But they recognize that getting your 1,000 True Fans is hard given the fragmentation of the music industry. They want to centralize self-promotion, creating the same kind of efficiencies that Henry Ford did for car manufacturing (a comparison they make on their site.) They adhere to the thinking of Bruce Warila, at Music Think Tank, who said:

“Genres are coastlines, niches within genres are beachfront properties, and standalone artists are rocks or grains of sand. Sticking with the metaphor: coastlines and beachfront properties are compelling, interesting and entertaining; rocks and sand are things that get stuck in your shorts and sandals. Moving forward, trusted entertainment channel providers - filters that can continuously find great songs for a niche - will have access to music fans as surely as consumers desire to gain access to the beach; alternatively, attempts by standalone artists to ‘manage’ relationships with fans will be as welcome as sand in a sandwich.”

With this in mind, the site’s big idea is “channels” to facilitate discovery–if you like one Brazilian band, odds are you’d like another.

Discovery and curation are certainly  massive needs for musicians, and largely why the record labels still exist. But this seems to be a trend that’s not slowing down. Recently, artist Jill Sobule bypassed her label and went straight to her fans for financing. Similarly, Amie Street, Popcuts and Sellaband all let you invest in music you think will do well and discover likeminded music.

Will services like this help to democratize this process? Perhaps a more interesting question: Does this whole concept equate creative endeavors with charities? Or is this just the new patronage model?

Microfundo

Tekeye - Colombian experimental percussion group plays with everything

You kind of have to see it to get it. That is to get how people make great music out of objects like matches, basketballs and toilet plungers. The Colombian experimental percussion group is as much theater as anything, but their also highly trained, talented and creative musicians.

You'd be forgiven for confusing Tekeye with STOMP the Anglo-american international sensation. Tekeye's leader, Tupac Mantilla, was heavily influenced by STOMP - even saw the show three times. But Tekeye's philosophy, rhythms and origin are all its own.

Tupac Mantilla was born 31 years ago in Bogota, Colombia along with expectations that he would carry on a family tradition of excellence in classical and traditional music. His grandfather, uncle and father had been a prominent composer, conductor and clarinetist respectively. Mantilla started piano at age 4 and entered the National Conservatory of Colombia 3 three years later. It was not a childish childhood.

MANTILLA: "I can't say that I really liked the piano, but I was in the best possible sense kind of forced to do it. I spent a lot of years, you know, running from the high school right to the Conservatory to make the lessons and everything right on time and then leave and go back home at PM and do my homework - it was a really busy life as a kid. Of course my mom wanted me to be the best pianist ever."

Until one day in his mid teens, Mantilla made a discovery. He and his brother and cousin decided to start a rock band and his cousin traded some roller skates for a drum set.

MANTILLA: "I saw it and I felt something different. It was like, 'That's a nice instrument, I like it, It's cool.'  And my cousin was trying to play, but he really didn't know much. Neither did I. I was like, 'OK'. But I sat down and I don't know why or how I was able to play a beat. And we all were pretty surprised. Even myself. I was kind of like, 'What?' And I'd never done that before, ever."

Mantilla convinced his cousin to be the band's singer even though he had a terrible voice so that Mantilla himself could play the drums.

MANTILLA: "And after that I started playing with everything. Like literally everything around. We had these pillows in the house that were destroyed after a week. I bought myself a couple of drum sticks and since I didn't have a drum set, I started playing, you know, around my house which is the typical kid that loves the drums. And my parents of course were really mad at me. The way to solve all the damage was by just giving me a drum set for my birthday when I was 15."

But in Colombia at that time the path for those wanting to study percussion was narrow. There were a lot of people like Mantilla interested in learning rock and roll or jazz drums, but with no one to teach them, he says, so after high school he enrolled in a university classical training program.

MANTILLA: "So we started studying snare drum, timpani, cymbal, marimba, vibraphone, which was really cool, but that wasn't quite what I wanted, so that made me kind of start exploring a lot with percussion, you know and rhythm, especially rhythm. Everything that sounded and had a rhythm in it - I was into it - you know and I was walking on the street and listening to the cars and saying, 'hey you know that car - check that out, that car just made that noise, that's nice and then, you know, this person is walking... I started becoming really aware of my environment".

And then there was that casual encounter.

MANTILLA: "It's funny because someone showed me showed me a little trick with a tin can and I loved it. So I learned it and I started to show it to people. I showed it to my friends, my peers, and they loved it, they learned it. The next lesson I came up with a little trick that I wrote with a rhythm based on a traditional Colombian rhythm. We put it together. It just kept developing."

"My friends started telling me,'Why don't you do a group. Why don't you do something else and it to the next level.' And I decided to do it. So I started to talk to people at the University. I had a lot of percussion friends who were into it. So we just got together and I started to compose music for them based on things like little objects, like small objects, like a tin can or a basketball."

This was the nineties. STOMP had recently come out in England and crossed the Atlantic. Mantilla loved it. And before calling the band Tekeye, he called it 'the Percussion Group based on the STOMP Idea'. Still, Mantilla insists that Tekeye is rhythmically distinct from its Anglo American predecessor.

MANTILLA: "STOMP is really, like, North American back beat kind of thing. You hear that it everything they do. Even though they are really creative, that's what you hear most of the time. But we have such a variety of different rhythms and grooves. So that's probably the difference."

The band was renamed Tekeye because the made up word contains a range of sounds the group likes to generate. Although Mantilla likes to joke that it comes from a tribe from his country's upper coast. In any case the Colombianess of Tekeye, the name and the band is central to its identity.

MANTILLA: "I would say, not because I'm Colombian, but because I'm a musician, that we are probably one of the countries in the world that has more influences from different parts of the world. We are in the center. We have the Pacific coast.All the African influences came.We have the Caribbean, up in the upper coast. Then we have the plains, with Venezuela, which is a totally different music. Of course we have influences from you guys. Then we have in the Center of Colombia it's a totally different thing that came from the Andes and all the way from the South. You know a lot of things happened and a lot of things got to Colombia from different places."

Creating these rhythms using different objects has made Tekeye a huge hit in Colombia Mantilla says. This has led to success in the world of advertising.

MANTILLA: "You know we've worked with IBM doing the keyboards and then cell phones. Red Bull, technology related companies, car companies, the French company Renault, and you know with the car actually closing doors and doing stuff and moving the car and, you know, grooving to the car and everything. In ten years we've done a lot."

This has been great, Mantilla says, but it's not what Tekeye's dozen band members want to be doing. The're more interested in live shows and that's what they're trying to do more of in the states as well as Colombia. They are also hoping to expand the Tekeye foundation which teaches experimental percussion to under privileged children in Colombia and Panama.

MANTILLA: "This is just the beginning of it because right now we are doing programs to entertain them and to show them that, you know, there's a lot to learn and that a lot of, so-to-speak 'bad things' that they could be getting into could be replaced by the act of doing art and playing and exploring objects. Besides the fact of, you know, teaching them how to recycle, for example, how to find instruments anywhere."

Taking Tekeye to the next level, that is more and bigger live shows, poses a particular challenge because Mantilla is the one band member now based in the US. He came to Boston four years ago to study at the New England Conservatory and now plans to move to New York. Still, he wants American to experience the Colombian-based band. Tekeye will be in Boston in September and they're working on a global themed show for December. They're thinking big with a crew of 50, but not at the expense of the group's trademark accessibility. Tekeye is all about interacting with the audience.

MANTILLA: "I stand in front of everyone and start clapping things for people to repeat. People are suddenly smiling and they are doing it. So then by the middle of the show we just go down the stage to the actual audience and start playing with them and, you know, doing the same thing. By the end of the show after four or five times, you get to see people that get to do really nice things. And people that didn't know that they have a little rhythmic essence hidden in them - then they notice that they do have that - that it's part of them."

Though Mantilla sees having rhythm as an essential part of being human, American and Colombian audiences are quite different. That is Americans can be hard to please at first Mantilla says, but they are often blown away by unfamiliar Colombian rhythms.

MANTILLA: "We use a lot of off beats. If I play something different it's going to call your attention a little more. It's more of a Latino type of groove. People are like 'Wow I haven't heard that'. People really liked what we did last time here. So we'll see what happens next time."

Interview by Microfundo correspondent, Amy Bracken

Tekeye is coming to Boston from Colombia to perform at the New England Conservatory in September, 2009. They need your help to get there! You can help microfinance their U.S. tour with a microloan and get repaid once the tour is complete. For more information: http://microfundo.mymondomix.com/tekeye/tour

Microfundo lets you microfund working musicians from around the world

 MICROFUNDO is the world's first person-to-person musician microfunding website that allows music fans to provide financial support directly to their favorite artist no matter where they live.

MICROFUNDO :: MUSIC + MICROFINANCE
MICROFUNDO is changing the way the world finances music by applying the principles of microfinancing to the music industry : a Kiva.org for music.

MICROFUNDO's mission is to support the entrepreneurial activities of independent musicians from developing countries around the world - championing undiscovered musicians who would otherwise not have the means to develop their music careers.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Choose a Musician's Campaign, Lend, Get Repaid

1. Music Fans like you can browse Campaigns of Musicians and choose an artist to lend to. When you lend, using Paypal or your credit card, Microfundo collects the funds and then passes them along to the artist once they've reached their goal.

2. Over time the artist is able to repay the loan via sales of digital downloads of their music that is distributed through Microfundo's media partners at Natonal Geographic and Mondomix.

3. When you get your money back you can re-lend to another artist Campaign or choose to purchase their artists' new releases or you can simply keep your money.

You, the fan, provide microfunding for musicians from one of the unlikely music capitals of the world - the townships of Capetown, South Africa, say, or the favelas in Salvador, Brazil. You are directly engaged in their creative process - making new and completely unique recordings that wouldn't exist without your assistance.

Change the lives of our Artists and help develop a thriving music economy around the globe.

Preview a live Microfundo fan-funded project here and see how the fans are making it happen.

FANS: Join us.. it's FREE and easy!

MUSICIANS: Microfinance Your Music Career

Marillion gathers their tribe of music fans with 'Happiness is the Road'

The British band Marillion is one of the first to engage its tribe of true fans to help the band raise touring and marketing dollars. In 1997, the band found they couldn't afford to finance a US tour, so their dedicated fan base took matters into their own hands. The fans raised over $60,000 online to bring Marillion over to the States. It was one of the first examples of how the Web could unify a music community to fund a major tour.
Following the tour, the band asked the fans if they wanted to help finance the recording of the next album and the fans responded by pre-ordering 12,000 copies. The band officially thanked each of them by name in the album packages.

For their newest album, 'Happiness is the Road' Marillion offered a $10,000 prize to the fan who created the most popular YouTube video of their latest single, "Whatever Is Wrong with You." In just a matter of weeks, over 190 different videos have been created by fans, some with tens of thousands of views. It's a very smart way to generate a lot of interest in a song very quickly.

Mark Kelly, Marillion's keyboardist, attested to the fact that the secret to their success is definitely attention to their fans. To date, the band have sold over 15 million copies of their music. Next year, there will be two international Marillion fan conferences, one in the Netherlands and in Montreal. And every year, the band issue a collection of unreleased tracks and exclusive material, pressed up on CD and sent to their Web Members absolutely free.

Mastering Entrepreneurship?

This past weekend I was reading a blog post by Derek Sivers (founder of CD Baby) on Mastering Entrepreneurship. Derek wrote:

"After reading The Art of Learning, I was thinking of mastery : committing yourself to years of achieving mastery of one single thing. But - what the hell is mastery of entrepreneurship?
What are the building block ingredients to entrepreneurship? Coming up with ideas? Turning rough ideas into a specific written plan? Turning plans into a working system and specific goals? Working with people to ensure those goals are met?"

When i think about the skills needed to be a master of entrepreneurship the foremost is willingness to take risks. From quitting your day job to standing out from the crowd and doing something unconventional - entrepreneurs are risk-takers.

The question then is what are the simple practices that can develop this necessary mindset and skill? In an earlier life I was the director of an Outward Bound School and ran a seamanship and mountaineering course in Washington state. When we would start with a group of students (travelling on the water in a small open rowing and sailing boat) we needed to develop the comfort level for taking risks. Later in the course
the students would be placed on a major peak ascent in the northern cascades and they needed to be ready (in their mindset) to take on what would be very real physical risks.

So we introduced several relatively safe risk-taking activities which were physically safe and yet pushed the students’ emotional comfort zones so that increasingly they would be ready to taking on more real challenges.

one daily practice was called ‘dipping’. we jumped into the ocean (50 degrees) every morning, first thing, without fail. On day one everyone resisted this practice. It can be pretty challenging to get up a lot of enthusiasm for jumping into cold water before the sun is up. But gradually we were able to transform this practice by giving it context and creating a culture and rituals and metaphors around ‘dipping’.

as people of the sea jumping in the water became part of our identity. if we played games and danced and chanted and basically warmed ourwelves up ahead of time - the practice became engergizing. it was the only way to get clean each day. it gave us a connection to the ocean that felt real. it greatly expanded our personal comfort zone and created more acceptance around other risks we faced.

and because we became used to being in the water it made us safer as traveler on the sea. and gave us courage to sail in rough weather.

it always came to pass that students in each would become a dipping evangelists - and work to sell the dip to others. even advocating double dips or triple dips and different times during the day. and when each group moved on into the mountains they missed the dips…

my suggestion for the entrepreneur seeking to become a master is to establish a regular practice of taking ’safe’ risks that will continue to expand your comfort zone and so that the practice becomes part of the entrepreneur’s identity.

my own risk-taking practices include improvisational theater — i work with a group that meets bi-weekly and we are challenged to create new responses in the present moment. I love this work because it always involves taking risks and being pushed beyond my comfort zone. It definitely hones my self-identity and skill as risk-taker.

Nation Beat plays with Willie Nelson!

Sometimes Lightning does strike!! Musician friend Scott Kettner who is leader of the group Nation Beat was featured on an NPR segment in August about Nation Beat's new CD "Legend's of The Preacher". But I'll let Scott tell this story in his own words...

Willie Nelson + Nation Beat: "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain

"The same night that this piece ran I got an email from a stranger with no subject.  The email read something like "Hi...I'm Willie Nelson's manager.  I want to talk to you about the Farm Aid concert in September.  Please call me".  I thought it was a prank so I googled the guys name and sure enough it was Willie's manager.  I called him immediately.  He said he had heard the piece on NPR and that he hadn't heard a band so original in a very long time and that he was now a Nation Beat fan.  He told me that he knew Willie would love us and would want us to perform at Farm Aid and that Willie would like to sing 2 songs with us.  As I tried to keep myself from crapping my pants I thanked him and told him that we were available for the date.

"Two days later Willie's manager called me again to inform me that he had just got off the phone with Willie and that he had downloaded the CD and listened to the whole thing in his tour bus.  He said that Willie loved our CD and would love to have us perform at Farm Aid and would also love to come sing 2 songs with us!  Holy Shit!!  That's all I could say!!

"As you all know...Willie is an American music icon.  He has crossed genre's and redefined American Country music for a span of over 40 years. I grew up listening to Willie...."On the Road Again"..."Mamma's don't Let Your Baby's Grow Up to be Cowboys" were theme songs from my youth.  Getting the stamp of approval from such a great artist is something that one can only dream of.  This band (Nation Beat) has worked soooo hard over the past 6 years.  All the guys have dedicated much of their lives and sacrificed so much but for such little monetary return so often.  Having this stamp of approval from Willie makes all those hard years more than worth it!  This might just be one of the greatest moments in our (my) career thusfar."

As the above video shows The concert happened on September 20th. Check out Nation Beat's Music here

Samba Tremeterra Live at Sound Session

On the 12th of July the group Samba Tremeterra performed at Sound Session - the genre defying music festival in Providence Rhode Island. I was there with my video camera to capture their set on the main stage before many thousands. I managed to catch the entire set of Tremeterra's dancers performing in the street!!

I was really surprised and impressed by the Sound Session Festival scene in Providence. This was one large outdoor party and had a wonderful carnaval-like feel to it complete with a parade through the downtown streets.

Learn more about Samba Tremeterra.

Music Festivals are Mushrooming and Going Green

Partly because of our changing music tastes, partly because of shifts in the music industry and maybe we're starting to catch up with Europe -- North America has caught festival fever this summer. Dozens of fests -- multiple-day events with a sprawling array of artists -- decorate the 2008 concert landscape, many of them first-time entrants on the scene.

For example, the inaugural Rothbury Festival, will run July 3 - July 6 with an eclectic bill that ranges from jammy headliners such as Dave Matthews Band and Trey Anastasio to boutique artists such as offbeat rapper Sage Francis and psychedelic rockers the Secret Machines.

With about 200 acres set off for camping on the Double JJ Ranch, 25 miles north of Muskegon, Michigan most Rothbury attendees will be roughing it at an environmentally conscious event whose aim is to "build a durable social movement," as one official describes it.

Organizer, Sarah Haynes, was quoted in Fast Company as saying:  "The Rothbury Festival is our most ambitious project featuring everyone from Dave Matthews to Snoop Dogg. We're sourcing everything green, from cups and plates to food, and we're recycling and composting. We're also encouraging fans to pay an extra $3 per ticket, for carbon offsets. Or they can pay an extra $7, which adds in the cost of buying solar panels for the local school."

It's destination festivals, such as Rothbury, that are catching up with the legacy set long ago by events such as Woodstock and the Monterey Pop Festival. Rothbury producer Jeremy Stein cites three big factors in the resurgence: concertgoers' frustration with clinical, corporate environments at the summer sheds; production advances that allow for more fan-friendly fest experiences, and the diversified music tastes that come with the iPod era.

One big difference from the Woodstock days: A sense of festival community is already building at Rothbury message boards and other online sites -- many of them created by fans. Among the travelers will be James Bricker of Houston, a frequent festivalgoer who says Rothbury is a perfect fit for his blend of "hippie rock and indie music scene" tastes.

Bricker was quoted in the Detroit Free Press as saying, "When they come to meet, they find out they've already got a really good friend. The music is always your big draw. But it's also the gathering aspect that matters -- it's 40,000 like-minded people wanting to have a good time together. That sense of community is a huge thing."

Rothburyfestival.com

Return to Calabash...

 

How Did Lil' Wayne's New Release become a GIANT HIT?

“Tha Carter III”,  the new album by the rapper Lil Wayne, just became a rare blockbuster hit. The album sold 423,000 copies on June 10, its day of release, according to Billboard, and it is predicted that first-week sales will near one million. (The last time an album broke the million barrier was in 2005, when “The Massacre” by 50 Cent sold 1.1 million copies in its first week.)

So how did this happen? Lil' Wayne (whose real name is Dwayne Carter Jr.), has not put out an album with a label since 2005 -- but he kept the attention of fans by releasing mixtapes and rapping on dozens of songs by stars like Usher and Chris Brown. He built a reputation as one of the most prolific performers in hip-hop.

Producing lots of 'bootleg' releases seems to have worked as the scores of songs that reached listeners on mixtapes and peer-to-peer file-sharing networks fueled anticipation for an official release. This seems to have translated into considerable fan loyalty because although “Tha Carter III” was leaked online several weeks ago, many fans have decided to buy the CD.

Before you get the idea that this happened only because of the new 'digital revolution', traditional marketing still played a significant role in the album's success. Robert Levine from the New York Times wrote, "Even in this era of mixtapes and MP3s, however, it took an old-fashioned summer radio hit to market Lil Wayne beyond his dedicated fan base of young men. “Lollipop,” one of the album’s singles, is No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, where it has spent several weeks, in part because it also appeals to women."

Sean Fennessey, the music editor at Vibe, was quoted as saying, "I don’t think Middle America got interested in him because his mixtapes were so great, but they forced serious rap fans to care about everything he was doing. Then he landed on a pop hit with ‘Lollipop,’ which was something he had never been able to do before. And between that and the serious rap fans, it became an event.”

According to BigChampagne, a company that tracks peer-to-peer online activity, Lil Wayne was the most pirated artist on file-sharing networks this past spring. Fans who downloaded Lil Wayne songs took an average of 10 of his tracks; fans of other pop artists only took an average of two per act.

Eric Garland, BigChampagne’s chief executive says: “That speaks to the quantity of his output, which is plentiful, as well as the depth of his audience’s engagement. If you’re a fan, you’re most likely a serious fan. And while people who like an individual song are not going to open their wallets for you, people who like 10 songs will. I think the mixtape phenomenon is great for feeding the machine, which is what the music industry is about in the 21st century.”

“Tha Carter III” was also promoted with television advertising and partnerships with MySpace, Yahoo and America Online, and iTunes briefly offered a new song weekly. In addition to the album’s success, “Lollipop” is now the best-selling ring tone of 2008.