HIVEWIRE #03: How Public Policy and Funding Drives the Internationalisation of Local Scenes
Emerging markets will only shine brighter when various scenes, authentic and local to the market, find the opportunity to shine. Public Policy and funding have an essential part to play, but more importantly, they have the power to change the soundscapes of the global music industry.
In a previous newsletter, How 'Glocalisation' and 'Internationalisation' have distinct approaches to emerging cultures, Srishti spoke about how streaming services have adopted a glocalised approach in each region, giving visibility to various music cultures within each emerging market. Access to distribution and the constant localisation of distribution networks is helping regional artists find their niche and creating / opportunities for them to build communities that have given birth to new music cultures such as Desi Hip-Hop, Romanian Techno, Amapiano and many more. However, as more and more of these subcultures find space in the network, we must aid the creation of sustainable ecosystems for their creators. While labels, distributors and promoters can be a part of the solution, they are frequently limited by their imaginaries, business objectives, and, ultimately, the curation strategies of consumption platforms. On the other hand, public programs and grants can be driven by the aim to preserve and promote diverse traditions and cultures within each society.
Cutting Through the Fragmentation and Saturation
Consumption patterns and charts over the past decade show that markets love going local. Domestically, each of these new and different markets also has different independent music movements that are bubbling. However, the cross-over of these genres as movements into global markets such as the US and UK requires active information exchange between the market and diaspora communities to drive discovery. For example, Afrobeats travelled from Nigeria to the UK first through their immigrant communities and with second-generation artists incorporating those sounds into their music. Latin music saw a boom in the United States first, with the second and third-generation Latin population finding their hybrid identity in contemporary Latin music such as Reggaeton.
Suppose a genre is gaining recognition but is only moderately popular in the country of origin. Capital is a requirement to drive awareness and consumption in a world of information overload and an attention economy, first domestically and then internationally, starting with the diaspora, especially in countries with large populations living abroad.