Innovative musician VERITY causing a stir
If you love supporting SA music then you need to get behind this highly original concept from Verity, a local lass who is selling copies of her CD before it’s made in order to get enough moolahs to actually record it. Nice thinking! Click here for her site. Musicians… don’t give up hope – get innovative!
Local artist’s innovation opens new doors …
for SA music industry
Many talented young vocal artists are faced with the challenge of funding their first album, which can amount in South Africa to a staggering R400 000. This is forcing local musicians to be highly innovative in launching their careers. One Cape-based singer/songwriter – Verity – currently has interested parties in the local and international music industry watching her progress with a model that ignores the major record labels, but still launches her career, gives money to charity, involves fans and empowers other local artists.
Verity has developed a unique business model that rests on the concept of pre-selling her album on www.iamverity.com to 5 000 fans or corporate sponsors on a trust basis, before she records it. 10.6 percent of every sale will be split between two worthy initiatives – People Opposing Women Abuse (POWA) and her Live Your Dreams fund for aspiring artists who lack financial backing. Once the 5 000-copy sales target is reached, a whopping R80 000 will have found its way into the charity coffers dear to Verity’s heart. Future owners of the CD also stand to win prizes from the Lucky Packet, the best so far being two R5 000 Intec distance-learning bursaries.
Her business model has garnered much international attention, with a number of foreign newspapers and websites carrying coverage of her unique approach, and more recently, with a featured profile at a European business innovation conference in Copenhagen. Equally impressive is that of the seven hundred albums already pre-sold, buyers have come from 16 countries outside of South Africa.
A further success is that a talented young jazz artist, Mimi Ntenjwa, has already been able to record a demo on funding she has received from the Live Your Dreams Foundation. Verity enthuses: “It is my intention to lend my voice and songs to causes I support.”
Whilst Verity has lived and performed in Nashville & New York, she feels that she needs to make her impression in South Africa. “This is my home & right now I want to be here,” she says. “I feel privileged to be a part of such an incredible country and grateful for the limitless inspiration I find here.”
Theo Crous of Springbok Nude Girls fame and producer of Verity’s two singles, ‘Wherever Love Goes’ and ‘Perfect’, holds this view of her talent: “Truly a unique idea from a unique artist. It’s great to see that you don’t have to have the help of a major label to succeed in the music industry today.”
Worthy of success due to her broadmindedness and social conscious, Verity’s music has a wealth of depth and thought behind it. Having walked the 800km pilgrimage across Spain to Santiago de Compostela following her father’s death, Verity realised: “If I could walk across a country & I could do anything. During the walk, I committed myself to living my dreams.”
Verity describes the essence of the music we can expect on her CD as “very personal & a collection of songs I have written over the last ten years that reflect the journey I have been on – from love gone wrong, to the loss of my father, to falling in love, questioning the world I live in, and (lastly) finding hope for the future.”
Besides the CD, participants in this programme will get their names listed on www.iamverity.com and an invitation to vote on which songs to record and the artwork for the album’s sleeve.
End note: To join the community of future CD owners on Verity’s site or to invest in South African music and this commendable initiative, visit www.iamverity.com or e-mail info@iamverity.com.
