24 Feb Artist Essentials | Purpose, Artist Legacy, and the Music Business (Part I) by Vivek Paul
At GMI, we try to bring to you the best of the industry voices. Today, we have a piece by Vivek Paul, founder of Gatsvy Consulting. This is the first part of a three part series of blogs.
The centenary old creative and music industry is advancing to a complete novel construct with the emergence of Web 3.0. This is coupled with the evolution towards the 5th Industrial Revolution, a co-existence between human beings and machines. Such progress with the onslaught of pandemics are radical for creativity. Artists have a dual impact – they are affected and beneficiaries. This debate continues as we witness continued M&As in the music industry. In 2021 > 5.5BN US$ was invested to acquire catalogues of successful global artists. The investment thesis will go towards 20BN US$ in the future, which means the catalogue will have different dynamics in licensing, distribution, engagement and ownership.
By design Web 3.0 rings in challenges to the operational structure of the music industry. Artists need to undergo absolute makeover, biggest being a mindset shift. The traditional music industry confines their freethinking to adapt swiftly in the times of changing market dynamics. Beyond 90% artists struggle to overcome their legacy thinking and are unable to cope up with ecosystems which are disruptive, creating long term impacts on earnings and copyrights protection. One of the biggest hurdles the artist has to cross in the new world order is monetisation of copyrights. The pandemics have erased upto 95% of the income groups for 90% of the artists without creating any cushion for secondary income groups. At the same time, the financial impact of low royalty and negligible performance income is showing signs of economic slow-down for creative works of the independents. This means the artist’s evolution is a SOS situation and dependency on grants, subsidies, waivers etc. creating a long term value erosion. The vicious cycle of interim assistance which comes with riders eventually becomes debt traps.
With so many transformations in a short period of time, what are the opportunities for the creative artist to address instantly which can become the backbone of their future. There are few big areas highlighted below that need the attention of every artist wanting economic resurgence and stability. Traditional business practices have low attention areas such as their focus is distribution, monetisation and market share. Artist Management and A&R also are not fully equipped to address such issues as they are yet to evolve in the pandemic punched world. Similarly, the independents have a low intelligence and knowledge in such areas as they do not fall in daily discussions of music production & promotions. However, the top 5% of the commercially successful artists factor in aspirations and long term value creation right from the beginning of their artistic career. Therefore, their impact carve across generations, inspirations flow down meticulously and their operating structure inherits business acumen and deep relationship with business partners.
A hard fact of the music industry is that – music is about recurring engagement with the assets and the viability resides in its commercial feasibility. Is music a habit or a hobby? This is a big question for introspection. A larger struggle of the independent artists resides all over their mindset, bubble they live in, mismatched belief system, aptitude to deal with opportunities and challenges. In markets like India, a big reason the majority of independents are self-invested is because the market focuses on celebrity economics and is negligible towards startups by artists. From 2022 onwards, the opportunity to incubate thousands of artist startups is very real as ‘aspirations, identity and mission of life’ do converge for the creative artists. To catch the new cycle of creative innovations and economy in the year 2025, 2022 has become the “golden period” as the decentralisation and technology has kicked in a power shift back to the creators. This assumption is based on hard facts and insightful data reflective of – economic impact, changing technology landscape, emergence of new last mile revenue streams besides royalty, advertising, social commerce and preference for 100% ownership of copyrights by the artists. This decade begins with collective value in ideas and assets, apart from, the last generation for human to human engagement. Behind the scenes, Fan to Fan collaborations and Equitable copyrights via tokenism or coins or tradable equity like company shares are some emerging aspects of the new creators economy.
Interesting work in this sector is done by The Delia Arts Foundation, an international non-profit organization that supports music in conflict zones, states that “working on supporting musicians in conflict zones has shown us that each artist has a story to share, a voice to be heard and skills to develop, and we are here for that. Through our work in Palestine, we have been able to support rare talents, one of them being Gaza’s Rock band Osprey V”.
Photo © – OSPREY V I MUSIC – Let’s Talk About Evil
Purpose, the most important aspect of Artistic Life
It is rare to find dialogues around the purpose of being an artist, life goals of an artist or a mission statement for life. Purpose is the epicentre of a creative journey and it can be bifurcated in multiple ways, highest order is the purpose of human life interspersed with creative pursuits. ‘Why?’ Is the big question – ‘Why am I an Artist’ ? , What’s my ‘Purpose’?. Are my deeds selfless or self centric? Time and again it is proven that selfless humans walking towards the path of purpose create a large impact on humanity and the universe through their creativity. This is how the music industry is supposed to be – infinite in reach, inspirational in approach, collaborative in nature, Self-centric limits achievements which can be measurable as significant milestones in the artistic journey.
Variance between purpose and hedgehog is that purpose is the mission statement of the life of an artist. A message that stays for a long period of time and goes into the post-human life of an artist. In its essence, purpose statements are the words that are engraved on the tombstone of the artist. Without such a mission, the artist remains deficient in their vision to impact the society, communities and lack having fan intimacy. History proves that at any point in time we remember our favourite artists, the memories are about the quality of their work, what they stood for, how honest, trustworthy, transparent and alike they were in their approach and creativity. Often it has been observed that discrimination pester the long term mission of the artists and they fail to fulfill their own dreams.
In the present time when humanity is passing through remote working and liabilities on personalised engagements, the traditional practices of the music industry are getting refined. The new world demands a novel creators mindset as well, then only the narrative of creative economy can flourish to create value. The purpose of an artist with respect to music is all about following a life long mission with inclusion of like minded people. Purpose goes deep into the philosophical, psychological, spiritual and conscious plane of the artistic journey and their human lives. It is not about being a rockstar, sex, drugs, rock n roll lifestyle, perception creation to entice eyeballs, deception etc. because none of these credits will ever go on the tombstone. The remembrance lines in the grace, gratitude and impact, an artist creates in their lifetime which is worthy of being remembered first and then be referred to as a moment of pride. In a nutshell, purpose has to be a big statement for human life, which is directly connected to the emotional aspect of the creativity of the artist.
Purpose brings harmony in creativity and human life of the artist. It can address the following:
- Who am I? What do I do? Does it really matter?
- Is my purpose genuine for my personal and professional life? Is this being genuine and trustworthy?
- Does it resonate with people at large, my partners, team, fans, associates? This can open many doors and bring motivation at work.
- A great differentiator tool than the rest of the global creative community.
- A self inspiration and motivational tool which differentiates human intelligence from machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Stay tuned for part 2!
Vivek Paul is the Founder of Gatsvy Consulting and has studied at Stanford University, and Berklee College of Music. With over two decades in the entertainment industry, he has contributed towards product design, content innovations, M & A’s, nurturing early stage startups, and serving the board of not-for-profit ventures. His life is devoted to building innovative products for businesses rooted in ethics. His methods combine intellectual capital, creativity, and humanity.
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