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EYE OF THE STORM //
WEDNESDAY // SEPTEMBER 03, 2008

MovemenTunes.com: Music as Raw Material
by Heru Ofori-Atta

I am proud to introduce to you an exciting cutting edge initiative, www.movementunes.com. Your #1 Site for Positive Culture Music Downloads and More.

Posterity and necessity requires the African artist in this day and time to be self-sufficient and self-determinative. Verily, the African musician and poet set the tone and language for the people. Therefore, the implications that European cultural imperialism brings to the table of the African are grave. The means of production and distribution, in any colonial situation, are sought to be controlled and manipulated by the power elite. Therefore, it is necessary that poets and musicians interested in African liberation completely control our own means of distribution and production. In that vein, some serious artists are embarking on new enterprises and thereby creating an indelible paradigm shift.

As an independent and professional spoken word poet, I perform internationally and nationally without the backing of a multi-million dollar corporate conglomerate. Although some of my fellow artists, who are well known, due to European corporate exposure, feel as though their signing a "major record deal" represents an elevation and evolution in their artistic career-I argue that the major record deal is actually a commonly observed devolution.

Firstly, contracts from major record companies are so heavily skewed against the artist, that the only thing the artist receives is a promise of fame without the promise of an appreciable fraction of wealth s/he has generated for the record company. In fact, 99% of artists on the major labels do not make any money off of "their" albums until at least the third album. The record company and other industry appendages receive 90% of the money generated from an artist's sales. The ten percent left to the artist is used to pay the record company back any advances given to the artist, any promotional money spent on the artist, and in some cases executive dinner dates and the cost of light bulbs for the major label's office are charged against the artist's account. For most artists in the music business, receiving a royalty check worth more than the stamp on the envelope is as common as meeting a fair and honest wealthy white man. It doesn't happen.

Consequently, the artist is left to make money through touring and live shows. The artist will make some money because the record companies are good at making anyone they wish "famous." As the major European descent owned record companies have partnerships with their blood and/or ideological brother's or cousin's radio and television stations, they have the ability to transplant images of artists they own into the minds of anyone who tunes in. The artist may be able to tour for a few years, and make some money, but since they are forced to make meaningless music that the public can digest and throw away, they become the flavor of the month... until the next flavor of the month appears with a newer, updated gimmick. This is the fate of most commercial artists.

Question: What happens to the culturally conscious artist who decides to sign with a major record label? 1) Consciousness or anything related to Black Group Power is either put on the back burner or struggled against vehemently by the record company. This causes the artist to be silenced and lack the ability of recording through other means, as the record company owns and controls all of their intellectual property and recording activities. 2) The artist compromises his/her spirit and conforms to the expectations of white corporate conglomerates to become a poster boy/girl for Black pathology. 3) The other and rare occurrence is the artist is allowed to speak to the needs of the people and becomes a true cultural and political icon like Bob Marley or Peter Tosh. However, the slave master's record company receives the lion's share of economic benefit from our "redemption songs." In one of Bob Marley's last interviews, when asked about the record business, he said, "We are making plans to distribute our own music worldwide, because, when you sing songs about slavery and the slave master and his children end up with a bag of money from your record, those types of things hurt. It really hurts."

Clearly, neither of the aforementioned options is acceptable to the African centered artist of today. Presently, we are at the point where we are willing to literally starve before we sell out our people or be silenced. However, starving is not necessary nor an option. The situation on the ground for independent Black liberation poets and musicians is ripe for implementing a cooperative model of exchange and economics. The internet has been an inexpensive, effective and far reaching way of exposing my work to people world wide. I sell my spoken word CDs, have sound files, live performance reviews, a bio, fan mail, pictures and an essays and interviews page--on my website heruspeaks.com. My work is available to the entire planet. I receive messages of appreciation for my poetry from supporters in Ghana, New York, Australia, Brazil, Miami, London, Holland, Japan and Ethiopia. In fact, I am my own record label because I finance, produce and manufacture my own CDs, control the artwork on my CD, the content in my CD, I take orders from the general public, ship the CDs to customers, answer any and all inquiries about my work, etc. I am also responsible for my own publicity and bookings. All of this has prepared me and other similarly situated artists to enter into a competent cooperative environment where resources can be pooled together and everyone can enjoy the fruits of their labor.

A few years ago, I employed a third party digital download service on my website for my CDs, and the results were astronomical. I decided to study the precise science of digital download technology and taught myself how to administer and process digital files on my own. I have conquered this technology and felt I should multiply my efforts times one thousand.

Digital downloads are the new frontier for storing and delivering content. Physical sales of CDs are down. In fact, CDs (and DVDs) are most likely going to go the way of the cassette tape. More and more mp3 players like Apple's iPod and Microsoft's Zune are being sold. iTunes has reached it's 1 billionth download. We Africans, who provide so much raw material for the music industry must position ourselves to take our equivalent market share and thereby dominate the digital download industry. The time is now.

Today, we are prepared and resolute to embark on creating an industry that deals head on with cutting out the slave master and his minions from benefitting from our raw material of musical talent and anything else that may be digitized. Remember, every problem has a solution.

Problem Solved!!! Enter: Movementunes.com

We are proud to provide you with digital downloads from world class artists from around the globe. Social consciousness and historical awareness are the common themes of all the artists on www.movementunes.com. The artists actually care about their respective people and communities and have taken the responsibility to inspire and uplift people through music. All of the artists are known for their solid reputations of commitment and purpose through music. Every song and each CD, is a tribute to our great legacy....