Microfundo :: Music Crowdfunding

Microfundo :: Would Kiva Work For Music?

The Stanford Social Innovation Review just posted this great article about Kiva's choice to become a non-profit. Kiva, the first online peer-to-peer microcredit marketplace, is one of the fastest-growing nonprofits in history.

Kiva's online platform allows ordinary people to invest in small and medium enterprises in the developing world. Users log on to the Web site to read the personal accounts of Kiva’s carefully chosen borrowers and then use their PayPal accounts or credit cards to lend as little as $25 to a borrower. Users would get their money back over the course of a year, with the option of either relending the money or pocketing it. While the loan agreement was in place, users would also receive frequent updates about their borrowers.

In April 2005, the founders e-mailed a description of Kiva, its mission, and the businesspeople it currently sponsored to a list of 300 friends. Within two days, the organization had raised $3,500 and funded all seven enterprises. Kiva had just become the first online peer-to-peer microcredit marketplace.

I find this a particularly inspiring story mainly because of the immediacy of the response. The obvious question for us at Microfundo was, 'would the Kiva microfunding model work with musicians?'

As a result we just launched the first peer-to-peer microfunding marketplace for international musicians on our new platform at Microfundo. Anyone can choose an artist with a microfunding campaign and microfund them amounts as small as $25. Earlier this month we followed Kiva's example and sent out a description of Microfundo's mission and the artists we are currently sponsoring ~ and we received over $3,000 in just five days!! (exceeding our goal of $2,500)

Want to see the original offer? You can help microfinance Microfundo and get downloads for life >>

http://www.microfundo.com/microfinance-microfundo/

We're launching our microfunding for musicians platform with the following five artist projects:

Tabou Combo - from Haiti - new studio recording

Alex Alvear - from Ecuador - new studio recording

Skye Carrasco - from U.S. - live album recording

Gregorio Uribe - from Colombia - new studio recording

Zili Misik - from U.S. - live album recording

This is a modest beginning. These artists are representative of many equally talented artists from around the world.

Imagine a world where everyone sings and dances and celebrates music each day...

www.microfundo.com

Djavan at Berklee Performance Center

Djavan is performing in Boston on Sunday, October 31, 8pm at the Berklee Performance Center, 136 Massachusetts Ave. Tickets are $65, $50, $40 and $30, reserved seating. For tickets and information call World Music/CRASHarts at (617) 876-4275 or buy online at www.WorldMusic.org.

Learn more...

10 Crowdsourced Videos made by Artists and Fans

Collaborating with fans to produce videos has been happening since the dawn of youtube with fans making and posting their own music videos in response to new songs by artists. Recently though, a few artists have been engaging fans in video collaborations with some strikingly creative results.

 Check out this creative collection of crowdsourced videos >>

Beyond Crowdsourcing ~ Crowd Accelerated Innovation

Large human crowds can sometimes do things that are really cool. That's the subject of Chris Anderson's latest TED talk: 'How web video powers global innovation'.

Online video radically changes the reach and speed of the improvement cycle. Things like music and dance, keep getting better, and innovation is getting faster, because artists see the best and improve on it.

"Dancers have created a whole global laboratory online. Kids in Japan are taking moves from a YouTube video created in Detroit, building on it within days and releasing a new video, while dancers in California are taking the Japanese video and remixing it to create a whole new dance cycle"

Free Outdoor Concert :: Harlem Stage Unites for Haiti with Emeline Michel & Tabou Combo

Harlem Stage Unites for Haiti with Emeline Michel & Tabou Combo ~ a free outdoor event in celebration of Haiti and its relief efforts. Saturday, July 17, Paltrow Field, New York City.

Featured Artists:

Tabou Combo

“Rhythm is the essence of Tabou Combo,” says Tabou Combo’s co-founder and ex-drummer Herman Nau. The infectious rhythm of Haiti’s national dance music, Konpa (con-pah), has propelled the country’s preeminent dance band around the world. The 12 members of the band have covered many territories since leaving Haiti and relocating to New York City in 1971. By that time, Tabou had already established itself as Haiti’s number one group, and as the “Ambassadors of Konpa.” Tabou Combo now has worldwide fans and followers from London to Paris, Holland, Switzerland, Japan, South America, throughout the Caribbean and in North America.

It is easy to understand why Tabou Combo’s relentless and high-energy style of Compas dance beat knows no language barrier. Singing in English, Spanish, French or their native Creole, Tabou serves a hot mix of grooves and textures with roots from around the world. You will hear a strong dose of the Dominican Republic’s national dance music, meringue. In addition, there is Haiti’s dance-till-you-drop carnival music, rara, the hypnotic drums of Haitian voodoo rituals. Add to that quadrilles and contra-dances from Haiti’s French colonizers and funk from the American soul era to James Brown for good measure. The mixture of all these influences makes for a serious bass line that brings new meaning to the word bottom; layer upon layer of accents courtesy of drums, percussion and congas; the constant intertwining of two guitars with the feel of West African Soukous topped with bright piano riff and the brassy sound of a 3-man horn section.

Employing the repetition and breaks of Afro-American gospel music, TABOU COMBO entices the listener to become listener and dancer. Almost four decades after TABOU COMBO’s establishment, the band has audiences dancing everywhere from concert halls to the streets and in night clubs around the world. Says Fanfan, the band’s background vocalist and main songwriter, “We want people to dance and forget their sorrows.”

www.taboucombo.com

Emeline Michel

Emeline Michel is the reigning Queen of Haitian Song: a captivating performer, versatile vocalist and one of the premier Haitian songwriters of her generation. She has recorded and appeared on concert stages throughout the Caribbean, Europe, and North & South America for over 20 years. Singing both in French and Haitian Creole, Emeline’s nine albums, Douvanjou ka leve (May the Sun Rise), Pa gen manti nan sa (There’s No Doubt), Rhum & Flamme (Rum & Flame), Tout Mon Temps (All My Time), The Very Best, Ban’m pase (Let Me Pass), Cordes et Ame (Strings and Soul), Rasin Kreyol (Creole Roots), and Reine de Coeur (Queen of Hearts) have catapulted her to international acclaim.

Emeline Michel is beloved by Haitians for combining traditional rhythms with social, political and inspirational content. She emphasizes complex themes, conscious lyrics, and a broad palette of musical styles, including the native Haitian compas, twoubadou and rara. She dances, sings, and does all with style, grace and pride. in 2006 she was commissioned by President Bill Clinton to perform at his annual 2000+ attended fundraiser. She has performed at venues worldwide including but not limiting to, the Lincoln Center, Schomburg, Carnegie Hall and the Flagey Theater in Brussels to name a few. She is a true representation of the best that Haiti has to offer.

www.emeline-michel.com

Tabou Combo comes to New Orleans for Haitian relief benefit May 22nd

Tabou Combo, will perform a gala relief benefit concert on Saturday, May 22 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans. Tabou Combo, together for 42 years, is widely regarded as the ambassador of Haiti’s national dance music genre known as Compas (con-pa). The band’s masterful compositions and undulating rhythms have propelled them to international prominence and worldwide performances, from the famous Zenith Theatre in Paris, Dakar Senegal and Belgium to Panama, Montreal and the Jazz and Heritage Festival in New Orleans.

Tabou Combo on Microfundo >>

Alex Alvear & Mango Blue close to their new studio release

Alex Alvear has done several firsts with Microfundo. Alex was the first artist started working with. He was the first to raise funding to do a recording session with his band Mango Blue at the beautiful new studio at WGBH in Boston.

His album is in post production this month (see video below) and Alex will be the first to release a new studio recording produced entirely by fans via Microfundo!

And Alex is now the first to be able to take part in our great new offer that Microfundo can now make to fans as part of our new artist and fan recordings collective.

As of now, actually as of these past several weeks, Microfundo is working with every artist to produce a live recording. Every fan who joins Microfundo (and microfunds $25 towards any single artist campaign) will receive a download copy of that artist's live recording - PLUS every other live recording produced by Microfundo throughout the year.

We hope to create a great new way for you to discover (and own copies of) new music by some of the greatest talents playing today.

But in addition to getting all the above live recordings - including a new live recording by Alex and Mango Blue - if you join between now and January 1 - Alex will also send you a copy of his new studio CD as soon as it is released in 2010.

Please help Alex wrap up his last funding efforts (he's raised over $6,000 so far) and use the select box below to join Microfundo with a $25 membership - enabling you to get Alex's new CD, his new live recording and live recordings by every other Microfundo artist as they are produced throughout the next year.

Annual Microfundo Membership

Alex Alvear $25.00

Alex Alvear & Gonzalo Grau take you behind the scenes as they do post production work on Mango Blue's new recording.

Support Alex Alvear's Campaign on Microfundo >>