By Alfred Tembo
Creating opportunities in the arts sector is now a collective responsibility that depends on building synegies among like-minded partners says Gweru-based music producer, Samson Mawire.
Mawire, popularly known in the music industry as DJ Smart, said monetary returns earned after a production, were by far less than what could be achieved when creative minds put together their skills and resources to come up with a single production.
“The cost of producing music is way beyond what we are charging to produce a single track,” DJ Smart said.
“We are looking at studio time, marketing and promotions, maintaining equipment and outsourcing other important services in order to produce a track or a quality video.
“Resources needed are costly as compared to what needs to be done.”
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To negotiate the challenges, DJ Smart said he opts to collaborate with experts and creative minds in the industry so that he shares with them the expense, a trend helping business to stay afloat.
“We now consider sharing our vision with others so that we can pool resources and support each other’s projects, there by cutting cost of production, improving quality and opportunities for everyone involved,” he said.
The executive producer at Smart Music said unlike other progressive markets like Bulawayo and Harare, Gweru lags behind in various key aspects that could drive the creative industry forward.
“We have a serious challenge in finding promoters, arts management and serious sponsors forcing the industry to operate unprofessionally and this norm has inspired us to consider establishing collaborations and strong curtails that share ideas knowledge for the development of the music industry,” he said.
“We are moving away from competing for the same client to complimenting each other in Gweru.
“We are for this approach to help each other find our group in the country’s arts space.”
Ethics Media director Simbarashe Masitara said his company has seen opportunities onto widening its scope into others areas that are beneficiary to the arts industry.
“Our core business is in videography and photography, but from the experince we had in working with others, we are considering to spreading our wings into public relations, management of artistes and social media managment among other areas,” Masitara said.
“These areas are of serious importance in such a growing market because they are now a need to Gweru and we are moving into the space to meet market demand.”
Masitara and Mawire are putting final touches on videos from some Set Piece Riddim produced by DJ Smart.
The riddim features 28 artistes from Gweru, Kwekwe and Harare.
Some of the artistes are YardEye, D Warrior, Stallion Gangster, Magaivha, Centre Mars Defeator King and Nasty 99.
“Working with a lot of people means different ideas and view points that can benefit the production and this is one best way we can help to create jobs and and opportunities for everyone,” said Masitara.