As seen in the March edition of Screen Africa…
The music industry is changing fast, and as artists have seen their CD sales slashed and are still waiting for streaming and download income to catch up, other business models have stepped up to provide much needed income to composers and musicians worldwide.
Due to the explosion of media, especially online content, but also TV, radio, apps, podcasts and games, a huge demand for “ready to go” music has been created. And because the aim is to maximise eye balls or ears on the content, the creators are reluctant to infringe copyright legislation by using unlicensed music. The swathe of digital monitoring technologies that constantly reports all music broadcast and streamed online also helps copyright owners identify illegal music usage.
Numerous high-quality music libraries are now supplying a wide variety of production ready music to content producers, final mix engineers, ad agencies, corporate communications companies, podcasters and thousands of amateur YouTubers!
One such library is The Mama Dance Music Library. Started in 2002, 16 years and 170 albums later, the library is booming in South Africa, Africa and Internationally.
Much of the library’s success is due to its niche as an African production music library, which covers genres from Boeremusiek to Kwaito to Bongo Flava and Maskandi. Its focus is both on traditional sounds as well as the latest urban and EDM flavours from Gqom to Hip Hop, Trap and House.
With a reputation for releasing high quality albums, the library has attracted renowned composers such as Dizu Plaatjies, long-time Johnny Clegg collaborators Andy Innes and Barry Van Zyl, Freshly Ground’s Josh Hawks, Bright Blue’s Tom Fox, Themba Mkhize and Steve Newman.
Here is what Andy Innes and Josh Hawks had to say about the industry and Mama Dance:
What made you decide to compose for production music libraries?
Andy: Production music is a last bastion in many respects. The composer has more freedom to create than they do in other spaces in the industry. Production music is also a space that is still profitable in the long term if you can find enough avenues to keep pushing out product, providing the quality of your output is top notch.
Josh: The decision to compose for libraries is a natural progression of a composer’s life. We’re content providers and the libraries are becoming more and more prevalent and relevant. If you are a composer and have a catalogue of ideas knocking around it’s a great avenue to pursue!
How has your experience been working with Mama Dance?
Andy: Mama Dance is a professional and hard-working outfit who look after their writers. I’m really glad we’ve managed to build a good relationship.
Josh: Experience with Mama Dance was easy going and collaborative. We’d throw some ideas their way and with their experience and knowledge of the landscape, they would advise as to what was working and how to shape the material. Everything took shape quite quickly; a painless collaboration.
These great artists music can be easily auditioned and downloaded at www.mamadance.com using simple music search functions.
For a taste of some of their fantastic compositions check out the sampler playlist below:
And if clients prefer searches to be done for them, this is where the friendly Mama Dance team is on top of their game – they know and love music! Their free, personalised music searches are fast and on point. After receiving a music brief, the team will send the client a playlist of track selections within an hour.
This type of service, together with compelling music from big name composers, keeps clients coming back for more and ensures that Mama Dance remains South Africa’s favourite music library.
The simplified 2018 music rate card can be downloaded from their website and new clients will be pleasantly surprised at how little it costs to license fresh and innovative music produced by big stars!
Mama Dance is a CAPASSO affiliated library and can be used under the blanket license agreements with SABC, ETV and many Multichoice (DSTV) channels.