Music Tips for Artistes Managers

MUSIC TIPS

New to your screens!!! CiDAR Africa presents you with Music tips!

Hello, hello, and Welcome to our latest blog variant; MUSIC TIPS.  Ever had any interest in the music business either as an artist, producer, manager, financial advisor, or road/ talent manager or you’re just a lover of all things music? Then come aboard, you’re on the right train! On MUSIC TIPS, we feature our very own CiDAR teammates, asking them important questions about their work as an all-things music & management team, and more than that, we get you the most insightful scoops and juicy details of their work. Join us today as we delve into the first episode.

In the business of music, helping an artist achieve potential growth involves a multitude of work… and a truckload of people are needed to make it happen. Those behind the scenes and those at the front and center.

On the surface and to an average listener, we randomly find ourselves listening to a particular song and then we keep seeing that particular artiste in different shows. They begin to mentally stick in our heads and all of a sudden they are all we see and all we want to hear. From little hums and wishy-washy attempts at the lyrics, their songs slowly become our favorite sounds. Baffled at this sometimes we find ourselves asking “How did he blow so fast?” “How did he get this far? '' Well, a portion of it is left to timing, talent, and luck. But another portion (and a large one might I add) is left in the hands of several people and at the core forefront of those people, are the efficient Artiste Managers.

WELL… WHO EXACTLY IS AN ARTISTE MANAGER? An artiste manager is a music industry expert who helps the artists oversee and meet their long-term goals, find opportunities to put them on a larger platform, and also help market their music. They are the promoter kings. The brain behind the connections,

Today, featuring our very own CiDAR head, Olaniyan.Gafar, we shed some light on the work of artiste managers, bringing you tips and perks to DIY, making your musical journey (whichever path you take), smoother and edified.

Q & A:

1. You have a new artiste on board, ready to tour. What are the first questions you ask the talent or the personal talent managers?

Olaniyan.Gafar: As a manager, my first goal or task is usually to try to understand the artiste. We ask for the vision and mission of the artiste. We also try to see their journey, how often they’ve released, or if they are dealing with their debut release. Depending on the stage an artiste is in his career, the goals tend to differ. For some artists, the release can be to garner engagement and or PR Mentions, for some, it is to connect to their fans. To transcend an artiste from one level to the other we do high-level PR campaigns to spark some form of viral flow going. We check out their monthly impressions and work on ways to engage the average monthly impressions.

2. As an operations manager, what would you describe as your management style? (do you delegate work, emphasize teamwork, etc.)

Our style is usually to let the artiste take care of creativity and let operations do the work and run smoothly. Visualizing what you want to do and getting it done, with little to no stress or form of work from the creative.

3. How do you manage to make sure everyone stays on their tasks

To put it simply, we take accountability very seriously. At CiDAR Africa, we have a group, a form where someone tracks everyone’s tasks. We also regroup and do check-ins depending on how big the campaign is. If it is a marketing campaign, we do daily check-ins. For a tour, we do hourly check-ins due to movement. People, places, and objects are constantly in motion so we have to keep up hourly to run operations smoothly.

4. How do you manage difficult artists, colleagues, and people with different temperaments? (DIY TIP)

We usually would think about this in a sense of value. How much more value can be extracted from the artiste, If the value outweighs the stress of working with them? So in that sense, we continue to work with the artiste and meet the demands of the artiste or talent managers until we feel like we’ve gotten to a point where the cost outweighs the value.

5. What is a major go-to routine you’ve found yourself habitually doing every day that helps your job as an artiste manage:

         Keep fit, know more people, and follow all your contacts, particularly people you look forward to working with, you will find information that will spark possibilities. An idea, an invitation, anything. Be up to date. Be useful, and provide value while growing your network by Keeping a mindset balance between clients and customers. Always find customers willing to pay to listen to them, club promoters, event managers, and have them ready. Know their market, and who they look forward to pursuing, and find ways to target, connect, and meet them.

6. Do you ever get exhausted, if yes? How do you deal with exhaustion

I take a day off. Binge-watch movies, Eat, play games, good food, stay home, rest. Inculcate myself into the art of living

7. What do you think makes you or can make someone a great manag:

The ability to multitask and the ability to stay calm under any amount of pressure. If you can lose your cool under pressure, you will struggle. We all respond to stress differently but being at the center of it all means you can’t afford to lose your cool. Find a balance between satisfying everyone’s request.

8. What are some other DIY music tips you can recommend

Try to create amazing content, post, be out there, and work on yourself. Create amazing music, lyrics, melodies, bounces, and any kind of creativity. If you’re a video director, find perfect angles. Whatever kind of creative you are and when you’re done learning and knowing how to create content that would sell/market you well, you must put yourself out there. As an artist, If you shuttle between making good music and putting yourself out there, it’ll be a matter of time before someone finds you. The more you do those two things, time after time any other thing can fall into place. If you can make good music, learn stage appearance, manage stress, work with people, and hold a strong individual value it would all come in handy.

9. Things people should know/look out for when hiring an artiste/operations manager:

Make sure the person is good in numbers, make sure they can manage stress, multitask, know logistics, and that they have a network of their own that they can utilize for your team.

And that’s a wrap on our lovely Q&A session and what a thoroughly insightful one it was. Now we have all the intel on what to look out for in artiste managers and juicy tips on how to grow as a creative. Want to see more of this amazing content from our music world maestros? Stick around the CiDAR blog for our next DIY, Music Tips! It promises to always be compellingly refreshing. Until next time, xoxo!

You can also check out Olaniyan.Gafar on his socials:

‍ Instagram:  @olaniyan.gafar

Twitter:  @Olaniyan_Gafar

LinkedIn:  Olaniyan Abdul-Gafar

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