Music creators have a big responsibility in taking care of their own rights, short of which they should not complain to the companies and organisations that they work for of measly pay, Niclas Molinder, the founder of the Music Rights Awareness Foundation has said.

Molinder was speaking at a pre-study workshop in Kigali last weekend. The workshop, organised by the Rwanda Arts Initiative (RAI) and the Rwanda Society of Authors in partnership with the Music Rights Awareness Foundation, sought to raise awareness on music rights in Rwanda and to get an understanding of the current situation and needs in the African music industry, especially within the advent of the digital era.

The workshop was informed, among others, by international experts from Sweden, the UK, Malawi and Tanzania.

According to Molinder, the specific goal of the project is to enable, through education and support, more individuals to take control of their music rights and be able to live on their music regardless of economic, geographical and cultural conditions:

"It doesn’t matter which part of the world, music creators don’t care so much about their rights. Out of my frustration that music creators don’t know so much about their rights, I started Music Rights Awareness Foundation,” Molinder said, adding that the Foundation is for the benefit of all creators in the creative sphere. 

"We will be there to talk the creators’ language, make sure they understand how important it is, and together with other stakeholders I’m sure we will make a change, but we as creators need to be part of this job,” he said.

The workshop drew local participants from a wide spectrum of music-related arts, from singers to composers, musician managers, events brokers, to songwriters, and music producers, among others.

Molinder’s opening remarks were followed by a lively session of songwriter’s presentations, which was basically a cordial roundtable discussion on every one’s background, profession, any previously released material, and current knowledge of the responsibilities and rights related to music creation.

The local music industry

There was also a discussion about the current music industry situation in the country. In a way, the workshop was a diagnosis of the challenges that still dog the local music industry, from the lack of public spaces and facilities for arts practitioners to showcasing their work, to lack of genuine will by media houses to promote local content, and the need to pay ‘a bribe’ before one’s song can be put on the airwaves.

"The biggest problem we face is the lack of space from which to perform,” said Mani Martin, one of the local artistes.

"We have no theater, so we have to perform from hotels but these are conference venues, they are not designed for music concerts. Usually, you have to pay about $5,000 for these venues so it doesn’t make business sense.”

Mighty Popo, whose name has come to be synonymous with the annual KigaliUp Music Festival, expressed dismay at what he termed "lack of fundamentals” in the local music industry:

"When you talk about producers, for instance, in Rwanda it’s quite different. Here a producer is the mixing engineer, the beat maker, sometimes even song writer, while a musician could think of a producer in terms of a record label, that one person who they go to and create a beat, write lyrics, and then they engineer the thing, produce, mix and master the song,” Mighty Popo said.

Danny Vumbi, a singer and songwriter, decried the fact that song writers are still not given their due credit in Rwanda, saying no producer, musician, radio or TV presenter ever credits a songwriter.

Eric Soul, an events broker, events entrepreneur and DJ, urged fellow arts practitioners to take the lead in spreading awareness about musicians’ rights.

"Word of mouth is the most powerful tool of communication. We need to meet physically at gigs and we need to get heads of relevant partner institutions like government and private stakeholders into gigs other than going to them in their offices. We need to take them where the creative energy and creative juices are flowing,” Soul said.

‘Music Rights in Africa’

The organisation, Music Rights in Africa, is the brainchild of Niclas Molinder, the founder of the Music Rights Awareness Foundation, and a Rwandan, Sonia Mutesi Hakuziyaremye, coordinator of the Pan-African Composers’ and Songwriters’ Alliance (PACSA).

"I was in Italy last year when we planned to start this foundation. I was talking about the challenges we have to make creators understand music rights, and after my speech I met Sonia and she told me it was exactly what she wanted to do for PACSA, we decided to start Music Rights in Africa as the first project for the Music Rights Awareness Foundation,” said Molinder.

The team wound up their one-week African itinerary in Rwanda, having started off in Malawi, then Tanzania.

The project works with several partners like Spotify, a Swedish digital music distribution service; YouTube; CISAK, an umbrella organisation for all the copyright societies in the world; PACSA; and the Copyright society in the UK.

"These organisations will help us to collect your money if your song is used outside your own country,” Molinder said.

"I’m working closely with YouTube and Fortify, but their biggest problem right now is to know where to pay, because the creators don’t report the music. 

"So they have money, and there’s an expression in the music industry that "Black box money” – unidentified money that’s travelling round the world through the Rights societies and through distributors – which money could be paid up, but they can’t do that because the creators don’t tell the organisation. So it’s a chain of different things that we need to do.”

editorial@newtimes.co.rw