Maria McCloy In your ear
Aside from jetting into the country to ride the Blue Train, legendary music industry and media player Quincy Jones was also in town to launch a new Internet radio project, Q-Radio.
The project is an interesting reversal: instead of the usual bombardment by all things from the United States, Americans can now click on the Web site and listen to South African music from a variety of artists, as well as read profiles on South African artists.
The executive producer is Joness old friend, musician Caiphus Semenya. Through a deal with SABC, Q-Radio will give surfers the chance to listen to Radio Metro and Ukhozi FM. Q-Radio President Don Brown said music is readily available to Americans on the Internet.
The project also wants to open new avenues for cross-cultural educational exchanges and to initiate musical dialogue between South African and American youth. Said Brown: Jones hopes to provide individuals and businesses in South Africa with new opportunities to draw attention to themselves.
The partnership between Jones and American Broadband Productions LLC (an Internet content provider based in Washington) is targeting advertisers who want to get at the 50-million Internet users in America. But isnt the medium elitist? Jones replied: Of about 280-million people in the States, only 50- million are linked to the Internet and weve got to do something about that, because technology will run the world.
He said more education in information technology was needed, but key to drawing people to the Net was putting up interesting stuff an example is the Vibe Website, a hip-hop magazine he founded, which is Warner Brothers second most popular site.
Jones said it has become harder to have black media ownership: There has to be recognition in the laws and right now its not great, theyve taken away minority tax programmes, welfares gone, weve gone backwards. Theres no more affirmative action programmes so its harder for black ownership to happen. Its a struggle, it aint easy.