This is the best time to be a musician
The Hindu
Independent artistes are now showing the world that there is space for all forms of music
The world’s creative economy is about to explode even further. With the ‘metaverse’ expanding, and personalities like Kamal Haasan announcing their digital avatars in the Non Fungible Token space, the future is here. The pandemic has also seen the emergence of online stars and artistes, who have now created a sizeable following and careers in the physical world, completely independent of any other push or promotion.
In this context, I recently moderated a panel for one of India’s most important conferences for the music industry. Titled ‘All About Music’, this year’s focus was on regional music industries. The Tamil panel saw the coming together of industry and creators, music composer Santhosh Narayanan among them. The conversation was important for two reasons. One, in establishing the fact that despite the millions and billions of views and listens, the Tamil industry (or for that matter, all regional music streams) is still nascent. Two, the future for independent musicians looks quite bright.
The first notion challenged me, as I thought that with the sort of success ‘Enjoy Enjaami’ enjoyed, the Tamil scene was on an all-time high. Industry observers have estimated that we have not even reached 5-10% of the total potential for global listenership. And this just for Tamil. Factor in the other regional players and the numbers are mindboggling.