Entertainment industry and poverty.

The South African music landscape is under serious fire as many South African artists die struggling financial or are in dire poverty and in numerous debts. This is very unfair on children and family members left. The South African entertainment industry has a rich legacy of arts and audio- visuals but families and children will not eat legacies right? Most of these artist at the height of their career where multiple award winning or had healthy sustainable financial lifestyle.

 We should point out that others had poor lifestyle choices which went with the money fast as it came and others are just plain-unfairly exploited. Those who are exploited often sign contracts they don’t understand naively and others are often manipulated to accept contracts that should benefit the industry gatekeepers and very little for the artist.

Artist take these offers due to their social standing at the time and don’t have any other choice. Another thing that keeps artist in a place of lack is industry gatekeepers. Many have been coming out on twitter to ‘out’ certain production companies and music bosses of closing opportunities for talented artist or  looking for ‘bedroom meetings’ before any opportunity is given. These meetings of course always benefits the female counterparts and leaving the males out in the cold.

Another thing we should look at, is the abuse of alcohol and drugs in the entertainment industry. This has closed a lot of doors for young, talented artists. Another common thing that led to financial difficulty is the lack of financial literacy amongst artist, particularly the black South African artist. Perhaps what the South African entertainment industry should look into is; educating artist before contracts even are even signed.

Industry gatekeepers should do more accessible workshops into entertainment etiquette, financials and royalties, percentages of the label they signed into, branching out into entrepreneurship and the details that goes into being an artist in entertainment.  Hopefully the young amapiano artist will change the spec of the industry and hoping going forward that artist will exercise financial literacy into their public lives and daily behaviors.

Story sources: https://briefly.co.za34138-famous-south-africans-musicians-celebrities-died-poor.html/

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