A lot of people take music promotion for granted-says Zimbabwean born heavyweight boxer Derreck Chisora. The thinking is that if you have a lot of money, you can call upon any artiste of your choice and set him or her up for a gig. However, it is not as simple as that. Agreed, there is not a school or college that I know of where music promoters can go and learn the trade, but it takes a lot of skill to become a successful promoter.There are only a handful of professional promoters of music in Zimbabwe. The majority of the so-called promoters are fly-by-night briefcase promoters who are after a quick buck.This trend has also become rife in Rwanda, where musicians complain often of the lack of opportunity to make a living doing music. There are no concert promoters or sponsors and, when a concert is organised, local artistes are paid very little compared to guest artistes.What usually happens is that one sees a popular band or artiste and dreams up an idea of how he/she could generate funds for themselves out of the band’s or artiste’s popularity.A concert is then haphazardly organised with billposters and sometimes newspaper advertisements as the only form of publicity. From then onwards, one begins to call himself a music promoter. Agencies
