Comedian Alibaba has taken out time to school upcoming artistes on the need of visibility and loyalty. No doubt, the life of a celebrity isn’t really an easy task to attain especially as an artistes.
The veteran comedian who has been in the entertainment world explained in simple terms why upcoming artistes with so much talent and unfulfilled dreams whither away in a twinkle of an eye, tracing this to the fact that most upcomers forget that they need an investor, record labels and sponsor to become more visible and that by this they need to remain loyal until they have successfully built a brand and a name for themselves, like Wizkid and Davido.
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“So this young talent, bubbling with a lot of potentials approaches an investor. The investor recognizes the creativity and puts his money on the talent. Very often you hear “What is it that a record label did that they are controlling the life of the artiste?” Well, all the things you see in the post and more, are what a record label, sponsor, promoter or investor does for an artiste to set their career on the right path. Once all of these are properly synchronised and sorted out… the chances of “BLOWING” can be greatly increased.
The problem usually starts when the #Artiste has started making waves and the friends and confidants, or even the artiste feels that he should be getting more from his talent than the record label (or promoter or sponsor or investor) is offering. You see, all that you see in the diagram can cost anything between 20m to 30m or even more. When an artiste starts to make it, after all that has been spent, it might take a while before the artiste begins to earn say 500k per show, and eventually rise to 2m per show or even 5m.
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However when the artiste has blown, the narrative changes. The artiste begins to wonder why he gets only a fraction of the millions he is attracting from shows, endorsement, sign-on fees, appearance fees and ROYALTIES. Many artiste usually forget that the investor, may need to recoup the initial cost invested. And unless the artiste gets into the Davido and Wizkid hemisphere, the cost of sustaining the brand would still be borne by the investor. What usually then happens is the artiste wants to be free. So the artiste breaks free and starts to do these things (in the diagram) for himself. Then reality sets in. It then becomes clear that the generator needs diesel or fuel. Inverters need the Gen. Subscription of DSTV can run out. Rent has to be paid. Clothes are not cheap. Access to accessories is not easy. Salaries for househelp, maigaurd, driver, manager, bouncer, PR… don’t stop. Many OAPs need to hear from you before the listeners will hear from you. Cars need to be serviced, insured, fuelled and replaced. Phones need to be topped up, updated and replaced if stolen. To be visible, your eye go see wiin.”
