Artists need to stop operating from hand to mouth- Seabelo Modibe

Preparations well underway for the Botswana International  Music Conference

LAME BOGATSU

Organizer of the Botswana International Music Conference, Seabelo Modibe, says it is time local musicians stopped operating from hand to mouth and start inspiring for greatness.
Modibe said this recently when discussing the theme of this year’s Botswana International Music Conference (BIMC) with Time Out. “The theme for this year’s Music conference will be dubbed Monetize your Career. We have noticed that a lot of our artists do not take their music careers seriously, they know very little about investing in their brand image and making it work for them to bring in money. In the case of those who do get money, they do not spend it wisely hence this year’s theme.  The most important thing about this year’s BIMC is to educate young artists,” he said.

To realize the theme of this year’s BIMC, Modibe said they will talk about health, education, industry structure, management, artists/event management and development, digital music sales, royalty management, copyright law, broadcasting and media.
“Botswana Music Conference is coming; I have already started talking to people well on time. The conference will be from 27 Nov – 2 Dec. This year I made it a point to approach potential funders 9 months before the conference. The plan this year is to make sure all music industry players are involved such as the likes of MYSC, Min of Health, Min of Education, CIPA, BOCRA, HRDC to name a few,” he said.
According to Modibe, talks are well underway to have the Music conference held at the Main Mall in Gaborone where it is expected to be accessed by variety of artists across genres as well as the different music industry contributors. He also revealed that they were planning to bring big names to the conference:
“We are planning on bringing Channel O and even new pay TV Channels, because we need the international market. We are going to look at practical way to make money if you are in the music industry. We have confirmation from KZM Music House in South Africa which is a government funded studio and we want to see how we can get our artists into that space.” Only 200 people will be allowed to register for this year’s conference.