Beat auction silver lining for producers

By Faith Haushona-Kavamba
LOCAL producers are often dealt the short end of the stick in the industry, whether it’s by being overlooked when giving credit for a song or through royalties.
One of the most prominent issues is that producers are forced to sell their beats at (sometimes unreasonably) low prices.
Tired of this, two young producers, William ‘Will G’ Shilamba and Martin ‘Nasha Blaque’ Amushendje, found a way around the system with a beat auction.
“The beat auction is what I call an audible art exhibition. It’s a platform where producers can showcase their beats and let the audience or buyers determine their value,” Shilamba explained the concept of the auction.
The young producer explained that initially when they started off, together with his partner, they would release their beats for free on the internet, like a mixtape, however they got weary of doing that and so decided to sell their beats.
But even that proved to be challenge because it was difficult to price the beats or place a value on them, and so the idea of the auction was born.
“We had the first beat auction in October last year. The first one was meant to be an intimidate auction; then the turn up grew for the second auction. We were pleasantly surprised at the turnout so we decided to have it on a large scale this time around,” he explained.
The third beat auction was held at the Warehouse Theatre last Thursday and saw the crème de la crème of the music industry attend it in hopes of securing the best beats.
Sally, Paradox, Ees, Pombili and KP Illest were among those who attended the beat auction some as merely spectators and others as bidders.
Initially 10 producers were scheduled to auction off their beats, but only nine of them did. Each producer was expected to produce three beats that would be auctioned off. Bids for each beat started at N$400 and would go up depending on how popular it was.
Static Playa, Chris Tronix, Spadez, Preezy, R.U.K, Kanibal, LucciThanxForTheBeat, DJ Flow and Jeiyo auctioned of their beats. Of the 26 beats auctioned off, 20 were sold off, with the highest selling for N$2 500. It belonged to Static Playa.
“Each beat is leased (or bought) for a period of 100 years, and the terms of that agreement is upheld as long as the producer receives a cknowl edgement for the beat. The producers also receives royalties for the beat,” Shilamba said.
He added that they have an iron clad contract which ensures that both parties adhered to the rules of the initial agreement. He also said that their auctions were not discriminatory and allowed everyone to bid, whether they are musicians, other producers, artist managers or filmmakers who
merely need a soundtrack.
“If the person who bought the beat wants any alterations they need to be done with the consent of the original producer, however that producer does not need to work with the person on the final product of their track,” he explained.
Giving more producers time to work on fresh material, Shilamba said that they will have the next auction either in August or October but will let interested parties know beforehand.