Namibia: Musicians At Odds With Record Shop

Namibia: Musicians At Odds With Record Shop

The Namibian (Windhoek)

21 February 2008
Posted to the web 21 February 2008

Denver Isaacs
Windhoek

Local music shop L'Afrique Musique has come under fire from a number of musicians who say they've been struggling to get the owner to pay them their royalties.

The source of the artists' complaints lay in the "consignment" deals they have with shop owner Malcolm Nalisa, whereby he is allowed to sell their work and pay them their share of the proceeds afterwards. This is one of two ways in which L'Afrique and other outlets are allowed to stock copies of artists' work - the other being through the direct buying of copies before displaying them in his shop.

Gustav and George Pickering, who form soul group G3, say they've been doing business with L'Afrique for the past two years, and that most of this time has been spent trying to get Nalisa to pay them about N$2 000 owed to them. Northern-based kwaito performer YT De Wet is another upset artist, who says that the shop has owed him between N$5 000 to N$6 000 for the last year.

"Last year it was the same thing. They always come up with a lot of long stories and promises, like the manager is out of town, or they're going to pay me through Internet banking. I only got that money after I went to Nascam [Namibia Society of Composers and Authors of Music]," he said.

The artist says he had approached Nascam again this week to try and get them to persuade L'Afrique to repay him what he is owed.

According to George Pickering, G3 are frustrated to the point where they are ready to bring in lawyers.

"Namibia already doesn't have any buying power, and here is this guy taking what little amount we're able to make," he said.

Big Ben, another local artist, said he had vowed not to work with L'Afrique again.

When contacted on the artists' issues this week, Nalisa said he understood their frustration, but maintained that they needed to remain patient.

"I also understand them. But here we prefer that all your copies are sold out before we make payment. Otherwise we lose money paying for albums that just sit here gathering dust," he said.

He disputed the figures the musicians said they were owed.

De Wet, he said, is owed N$1 000 from a previous album, while a few G3 copies still have to be sold before they can expect payment. "Previously we weren't getting a lot of foot traffic," he said yesterday about the shop's recent move from a backstreet to the Post Street Mall in Windhoek's central business district.

"Now these guys expect things to change overnight. They must just remain patient," he said.

Nalisa said although the ideal scenario would probably be for the shop to buy artists' CDs straight up, this only made good business sense in a few cases. "There are some guys who you can safely buy from and the CDs will fly off the shelf, but with others it doesn't make good business sense," he said.

Nascam Executive Officer John Max acknowledged that he had to intervene in conflicts between the shop and artists, and advised artists to keep proper written documentation of any deals they get into. "Some I know are now keeping little booklets now where the owners are made to sign.

Because you also get instances where artists are being (conned) by employees at shops, who let them make deals with them rather than the owner himself," he said.

When asked for comment, the Secretary General of the Oruuano of Namibia Artist Union, Vincent Mwemba, said that the union and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting were drafting a standard contract for all artists from a minimum wage to all the dealings they have with various players in the country's growing music industry.