IN THE upcoming months, Guyana most likely will be witnessing an unprecedented marketing war between cellular providers GT&T (with its Cellink Plus) and newcomer Digicel.
Tomorrow, Digicel is bringing in international megastar, Akon for its own launch. Last Friday night it held its `Firestorm’ concert at which it shared out tickets for the free Akon concert at the launch.
This comes a few weeks after GT&T launched its Mashramani camp with a Blue Power concert featuring leading Soca performer, Allison Hinds. It is obvious that both companies know into which their best customer demographic falls: the youth market.
The advantages of more than one businesses competing for your dollar are obvious. It only helps to improve the services and products offered, it increases the range of benefits that come with basic service, and it lowers the costs attached to receiving said products or services.
However, there seems to be one spin-off niche benefit to the brewing battle between the two cellular service providers, and one which can have positive benefits for the country as a whole. Considering all the concerts recently hosted, and those yet to come, the local music industry apparently is in for a windfall of much needed financial backing.
GT&T, of course, has done some pioneering work in discovering and promoting local singing talent. Its annual jingle competition has not only been invaluable in launching at least one local superstar, Timeka Marshall, but many other second or third place contestants have gone on to do relatively well on the local entertainment scene.
Now with Digicel on board, and going after the same target customers, and using the universal language of music to get their attention as well, it seems a good time to be a musician in Guyana.
The amazing thing is that this level of promotion is coinciding with several other things. For example, a little over a year ago it seemed imperative for Marshall to go to Jamaica. Yet today, newcomer Wildfire Productions – with a self-taught Jonathan Beepat and team behind it – have come up with two original music videos comparable to, or arguably even better than, Marshall’s. The currently ongoing Carib Soca Monarch competition should not be forgotten as well.
Then there is the music itself. With many local artistes formerly believing that they had to completely mimic foreign performers to get by, today’s singers are carving out new sounds of their own. While they may not be reinventing the wheel by creating some new genre, they are adding their own distinctive local flavour to whatever style they choose to perform in, from hip hop to R&B to Soca to Dancehall.
The past few years have seen the rise of names like Marshall, Alabama, X2 (Adrian Dutchin and Jomo), Celeste David, Michelle “Big Red” King, Shelly G, and Malo. And there are new names coming up seemingly every few weeks. Fojo is one name that comes to mind, as well as Wildfire’s Typheon and Gialiani.
One thing is still out of place, however. While all this is well and good for pumping much needed funds into the local music industry, if it is that Guyana is going to be able to reap the benefits of a future Akon-stature musical star, the local environment as it relates to intellectual property rights is going to have to be vastly improved. The cellular war is going to tone down or end some day, and other forms of corporate sponsorship can conceivably do so as well. When that time comes, a hopefully well-launched music industry will have to keep its own momentum in its flight upward until it reaches some sort of comfortable plateau at which it can float without too much effort.
Assuring that this new talent coming out of Guyana is protected by law is the key step in making that happen.