Musicians made an impassioned plea for an airplay quota for local music at this week’s IBA hearing. Hazel Friedman was there
IF you happened to be walking past Johannesburg’s Mariston Hotel on Tuesday this week, you might have thought you’d stumbled upon a replay of The Concert at Ellis Park. You would have noticed Hugh Masekela, Mzwakhe Mbuli, Ray Phiri, Johnny Clegg, James Phillips and other local luminaries hanging about. You would have heard music by some of South Africa’s best bands and the sounds of Midnight Oil interspersed with laughter and lots of applause. Hardly the stuff you’d associate with a formal hearing.
But then, Face the Music, the presentation by the South African Music Content Alliance (Samca) to the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) on an airplay quota for South African music, came across as anything but formal. The normally poker-faced proceedings were transformed into an emotional, jocular event as musicians and industry representatives passionately aired their views in the first open forum on the future of local music. At the start of the proceedings, the chairman attempted to quell the spontaneous interruptions. After a while, he shrugged his shoulders and joined in.
But the light-hearted atmosphere did not mask the gravity of the IBA’s task in redressing the anomalies and imbalances that plague South Africa’s music industry. Today, about one percent of radio airtime is devoted to local music. Internationally acclaimed artists like Phiri and Mbuli have never been interviewed on SABC television. And although Johnny Clegg’s crossover songs are inextricably rooted in his South African experience, he makes his living from record sales outside this country.
And these are some of the biggest names in South African music. Lesser-known musicians have to cope with record companies that refuse to promote their songs, and radio stations that deny them access to the airwaves. They must be discovered by another country before they receive their dues from the South African broadcast media. And when they finally get some airtime, it’s usually during the after- hours slot.
Who can wonder, then, that South Africans have developed a cultural inferiority complex? Starved of access to the rich, diverse timbres of our own musical heritage, we’re becoming a satellite culture, picking up overseas music signals, emulating them and absorbing them into our cultural consciousness.
As Masekela pointed out in his presentation on the standard of South African music: “Our kids are learning hip-hop. They want to be Americans. And when Americans come here, they say: ‘Where is Africa? Where are the beads? Where is the music?'”
At the core of the Samca presentation was the imperative of introducing a quota system for South African music, along similar lines to those used in Australia, France, Italy and Canada.
In its submission to the IBA, Samca set out a regulatory framework for the airplay of South African music, as well as detailed recommendations on the application of the quota to broadcasters. The system, explained media and broadcasting consultant Michael Markovitz, will be holistic and open-ended, and not based on language or cultural distinctions. The main aim of the quota system will be to encourage the diversity of South African music in all languages and musical styles.
Inevitably there have been whinges from broadcasters that the system is contrary to the principles of a free market, that it is detrimental to music standards and will cause a decline in advertising revenue. But the evidence from abroad suggests otherwise. The introduction of quotas in Australia, for example, heralded a cultural renaissance. The profitability of radio stations remained unchanged and musicians were given the exposure that had been denied them for decades. Today Australia is the third largest exporter of contemporary music in the world.
But while the introduction of a quota system in other countries has been introduced primarily to counter the onslaught of American music, the need for a quota system in South Africa is also geared towards overcoming a long legacy of airwave discrimination, where musicians were clumped into separate racial and cultural media camps.
“Radio is not merely a reflection of the market’s tastes. It also shapes tastes and influences our aesthetic preconceptions,” said Johnny Clegg, speaking on the effects of cultural segregation in broadcasting.
The IBA faces a daunting task in deciding not whether quotas will be implemented, but rather when and how. What is certain is that the structuring of local music content will contribute to the national spirit of reconstruction and development. Not only will South Africa be forced to see itself in a new light; it will hear itself as well.
As Masekela said: “Music has no race or class, and it is the only language that does not need translation.”