OF ARTISTS AND RECORD LABELS, ACCORDING TO HUPEPE CHULE.

I am conflicted on both sides. Why? Because while yes Zimbabwean labels do not have the formulaic structure of what’s considered in a label However do the structures constitute what a label is? Especially if we were to talk about the dictionary definition and not the definition that has evolved. Zimbabwe does have record labels.

This kind of reminds me of when you see an entrepreneurship masterclass on YouTube and the entrepreneur is like a vendor, not an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is someone like Bill Gates who has employees and can leave his job for 100 days and still profit but then you go to the dictionary and still look a what an entrepreneur is and it says an entrepreneur is someone who owns a business.

It’s the same analogy given in the label argument people have been saying that you cannot say “Zim has a label a label has a CEO there’s a creative team there’s a management team that managed let’s a tour management there’s an A&R , a publisher, lawyers all these components combined that’s what a music label should have right.”

However then at its core what a label does is get an artist to sign artists pay in advance or mostly loan money to artists. Side note: Labels hardly pay artists let’s just get that clear labels loan money to artists and artists should give back the label money with interest rates, well that’s what most would labels do. Some labels operate differently there is no one way.

This raises a question if Zimbabwean artists do not have teams of lawyers behind them, do not have A&Rs don’t have publishers and it’s just usually just one hype guy like Fantan with all hands on deck doing all administrative stuff and it’s just one producer and just a few artists how is that considered to be a label? does that make it less of a label? because once the fundamentals are done of artists being signed and whatever the artist is doing is funded that is a label.

Let’s just look at all the subsidiaries of labels we know today let’s start with Def Jam it started with Russell Simmons and Rick Rubins in Rick Rubin’s Domroom at university they didn’t have all the structures of lawyers, publishers, or managers, and a few artists and probably a few interns. that was DefJam Records we can also go and talk about Rockefeller Records it was started by Jay Z and DameDash using drug money without all the big structures. We can talk about Motown which is a juggernaut of coming up with artists and black entrepreneurs it kick started artists like Steve Wonder, Diana Rose, and Marvin Gaye but it started with an $ 800 loan without all the big structures.

Even if you search the history of all these big labels at most they had a music producer two or three artists and the artist had managers and that same manager would distribute and book for them and that artist was an A&R it wasn’t till they become monumental companies. So now if something doesn’t work in the functionality of what the biggest companies are does it become less of a thing? Likewise, Apple is a three trillion dollar company now!!! When it started in a garage selling computers without monitors It was still Apple like the Apple we know now.

I mean does structure or hierarchy define anything? Look at Uber it is the biggest taxi company but it doesn’t own taxis.

If you had a gym in your backyard and you have cheap gym equipment you won’t consider it a gym because you don’t offer premium service? The argument should rather be why Zim labels are stagnant what’s stopping Chill Spot records to be like Def Jam? Why can’t Samanyanga Sounds be like RockaFella and why can’t JMC be like Motown?