It was God, 500 Cedis and Vibes
Making music is one thing but managing an artiste and everything in his or her environment is a completely different ball game. For Selom Yao and Nana Kwame Afriyie, they have the privilege of managing the amazing Ghanaian Alte & Afro – Soul artiste Jay Cliff who is currently charting a path in a relatively new genre in Ghana and Africa.
Managing an asset in any business is challenging, and in the music business Selom will say “The job eh, e big.” And truly it is no small feat. It is never straight forward.
To celebrate the successful launch of their artiste’s new project, they shared some inspiring business lessons that tie in with their journey. As for their journey, we’ll need a movie studio to relive it.
Branding:
“In this business, there is really no line between your personal and work brand and both need to be very strong. We picked up lessons in being intentional about how people see us years ago from our friend, Chog, and it stuck with us. Today, that has transcended into rethinking every move and decision to determine its impact on us and our artiste. In our business, a manager has to build a solid brand on his own to a point where he can get features or deals for his artiste. His artiste must feel comfortable to the point where his only focus is the music
A no shouldn’t always mean no, but restructure and push on.
Tenacity:
A no shouldn’t always mean no, but restructure and push on. We had to get a venue set up for Jay Cliff for a listening session for his EP (Twelve2Five). The venue we picked, the perfect venue for our brand and the music being put out- decided they were going on a break thus they were closing down. The manager flat out told us “No, we are closing, we have had a stressful holiday period.” We managed to get the owner’s number and spoke to him with confidence and he agreed to give us the venue but no staff or service. “It was God, 500 Ghana Cedis and Vibes.” We put together an amazing listening session that has stuck with people since and the impact on our artiste and the brand cannot be quantified.
Knowledge:
Soon, it became quite clear that our love for music and our drive was not enough to achieve all the goals, we needed knowledge. An opportunity presented itself when Abdul Abdullah, founder of Afrochella, tweeted his desire to sponsor two Ghanaian talent managers to attend an online bootcamp run by Mr. Godwin Tom. Selom, sent in his CV and he got selected for the month-long course and all the knowledge acquired is in a book he carries around because he is constantly learning and adding up. The impact was too huge to ignore and thus when Mr. Godwin Tom set up a three-month long course, Nana Kwame’s mum invested in both of us and paid for us to attend the course. “We took it very seriously and soaked up every little detail.” “Immediately we were done, we sat down and looked back at our previous activities and applied the new knowledge to see where we fell short and we were amazed.” This new project, Red Wine Conversations, however is a byproduct of all the knowledge we picked up and of course the musical growth of Jay Cliff and the effect is noticeable. People are appreciating us more; new people are starting to notice.”
Tweet showing Godwin Tom’s Talent Management Online Bootcamp |
Tweet showing Abdul Abdullah’s willingness to support Ghanaian Talent Managers |
Planning:
Forecasting is never an easy task especially when you are dealing with music but it can be made simpler. “Maxwell Adjavon – iMullar taught us the importance of planning extensively in music and he is always there like a big brother.” Plan! Plan! Plan! even to the smallest of details, plan. Pre COVID-19, a two-year plan detailing how to get Jay Cliff in different markets and new crowds was drawn up and Selom dare say it is the greatest thing he has ever done. Although that plan could never materialize for obvious reasons, the attention to detail helped structure an online market and crowd penetration and with the emergence of the app Clubhouse, there has been considerable growth with two sessions, one each with Ghanaian Music Lounge and Harmattan Rain.
Reinvent:
In the genesis of the journey, Jay Cliff got inspired by a beautiful genre, Alte & Afro – Soul, and he decided that that’s what he wants to do. At that point, the genre that he was singing and rapping in, trap music, was quickly gaining popularity in Ghana and is one of the biggest in the world. It did not make commercial sense to switch to something new when we had made considerable progress. But, making music goes deeper than numbers, it is spiritual on many levels so we quickly reinvented our tactics and operations to get the best out of this new path and to build the brand again. We never want to rest on our laurels but sometimes people do not even remember that we switched genres, we reinvented so seamlessly and the first genre people attach to our artiste’s name is Alte & Afro – Soul.
“…I never knew I could manage an artiste until my mum sowed the first seed…”
Focus on Strengths:
I have always loved music, was enrolled in a creative school when I was younger and my family has creatives in there” Selom continues, “but I never knew I could manage an artiste until my mum sowed the first seed after she saw me interview someone on 4SYTE TV. Her words, I will never forget “You kraa why don’t you find some artiste and manage, you’ll be good at it.” Nana Kwame’s story however isn’t so different, his father also introduced him to music ever since he was young and he took up acting and singing in high school, also an incredible journey but it was Selom’s subtle invitations to meetings concerning music in a bid to feel him out and get him unto his team. “He knows music thoroughly and he has this spark that cannot be hidden, I knew he could do the job from day one and that pushed me to work with him to achieve certain goals”
Strategic Associations
There’s a popular African proverb that says “follow who know road” and its importance in the Ghanaian music scene cannot be underscored. Quickly, we understood that, our goals today, were people’s goals yesterday, pacesetters, and they have waded through the waters already thus it is very important to pick up a lot from them so we do not get lost. A lot of influential people from artistes to managers to producers, deejays and curators teach us a lot and open plenty doors of opportunities because of the willingness to “follow who know road.” IB Briggs, an amazing woman, has had a very important effect on our journey, still continues to have an impact. Her wealth of knowledge is immense and her artiste, Darkovibes’ rise in the scene is no luck but proper work being done.
Further Down The Road….
It has been quite a journey and the experiences are definitely amazing. The dream is to be successful beyond imagination – and that is a huge ask because we have big imaginations. For our country Ghana, we hope our efforts go a long way to grow the Ghanaian music scene into an industry. We do hope you draw inspiration and meaning in whatever field you find yourself in but in the meantime kindly listen to Jay Cliff whilst you relax.
By The Fireside by 1957AD seeks to tell authentic Ghanaian stories. Just like the traditional setting, you will find Ghanaians pouring out their thoughts and creativities with zero limitations.
This fire for this story was started by
Selom Yao & Nana Kwame Afriyie
With support from
Kelvin Wordi
For all enquiries and feedback regarding this article, reach out to us at management@1957ad.com