Caribbean Export OUTLOOK 2016 - 2017

OUR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

AQuest from the NewWorld: Accessing NewMarkets and Avenues for Caribbean Musical Acts

By Shyamal Chandradathsingh

Within the establishedmusic industry, becoming an internationally recognised artiste is an expensive proposition. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), in their 2014 Investing inMusic report, the cost to break into themainstreammarket canbe anywhere between US$500,000 and US$2 million per artiste. Within the Caribbean context, this can be challenging for a number of reasons. Themajor music labels do not have a significant presence in the region, and theCaribbean is generally included in the Latin America divisions that are based in Miami, such as Sony, Universal and Warner, and focus on content creation for the large Latin American diaspora in the United States.

ownavenuestopushandpromoteitsmusic. Jamaica hasbeenthemostsuccessful,generatingoverUS$2 millionperannuminmusicexportsthroughreggae and boasting the highest per capita studio rate in the world. Citing data from IFPI, it is evident that a record industry is built through investments in indigenousacts. Forexample,inthesixlargestmusic markets globally (Japan, Italy, Sweden, US, Brazil, Spain), the percentage of local acts in the top ten was over 85%. Caribbean governments and private sectormusicindustrieshaveaconsiderableamount of work to do when it comes to promoting and achieving the export of music in partnership with artistes, such as enacting local content quotas and music-specificexportdevelopmentprogrammeslike BrazilMusic Exchange or the BritishMusic Export Growth Scheme. In the case of the latter, which is

administered by UK Trade and Investment and theBritishPhonographicIndustry(BPI),theUKis bolsteringthecompetitivenessofitsmusicexports by investing in promotional budgets for record labelsandacts. EventhoughtheBritishrecording industry exported £17 billion in music in 2013, it still sees the need to continuously develop new actsthatarecapableofgeneratingforeignexchange andrevenuesforthecountry.Itisstronglyadvised that regional agencies adopt similar approaches to spur growth in the music sector, given the limitations of potential audiences created by the small populations in Caribbean islands. That said, in today’s world, there is no need to wait on the government apparatus to provide a solution. For the past 25 years, VP

TheCaribbeanhas therefore been forced tofind its

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