Improving Professional Working Relations between Musicians, Musician Managers and Music Promoters in the Developing South African Music Industry

Abstract

The South African music industry is a fast-growing industry in the country, yet its business processes and procedures are not well understood by the majority of musicians. A number of royalty and copyright cases have arisen as a result of this lack of   understanding. There is limited material available on the South African music industry and this lack of information might be one of the factors that lead to misunderstandings, which create tension and mistrust between musicians, music promoters and musician managers. This problem negatively impacts the industry. Four factors that commonly lead to misunderstandings are identified in this qualitative research study and mitigation recommendations are suggested so that professional working relations can be  improved. Musicians, music promoters and musician managers were interviewed to establish the challenges they commonly come across in the industry. The research objective is to minimise these misunderstandings in order to improve professional working relations between artists (musicians) and arts entrepreneurs (music promoters and musician managers).