Why Upcoming Zimbabwean Artistes are yet to Make Good Money from Music

[Photo: Courtesy]

By Kinyua Mwangi

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For years, a section of Zimbabwean artistes have lamented about a growing tide that makes it difficult for them to sell their music. This is despite the advent and availability of a number of streaming websites being at their disposal.

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A good number of them are upcoming artistes who verily lack knowledge on why they should look beyond YouTube in monetizing their music. Yet, Covid-19 pandemic has pushed them into a corner with no live shows; the pandemic literally blocked most sources of income from music.

Therefore, is there a need to preach the gospel of monetizing music more at a time that more music consumption has changed course and is now in digital platforms? Plot Mhako, a Zimbabwean music lecturer holds that there is need to think and come up with out of the box ideas.

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He told Sunday News that now is not the time to focus on YouTube alone.

“There is only a handful of artists from Zimbabwe who are making money off streaming platforms. The majority of artists are still yet to master how to monetise their content online. YouTube is the most widely used platform by both artists and consumers in the country, the uptake of other platforms is still very low since the cost of internet is still high and the subscriptions beyond the reach of many,” he says.

He adds that there is also a surge in the use of free Apps such as WhatsApp where artistes hope to land a gig at a time when the pandemic is sweeping Zimbabwe. They end up frustrated because there are no shows being booked at the moment.