PAYOLA -know what that means?
Thanks to Gufa Buda* for some interesting food for thought. He raises the question of PAYOLA on SA RADIO – do you know what PAYOLA means? We didn’t until now:
Apparently PAYOLA became a popular term in the 50’s when several high-profile DJ’s were accused of PAYOLA in the take-off of Rock n Roll. What GUFA wants to know is two-fold. FIrstly, do you think that PAYOLA exists on South African Radio and secondly if it exists in the genre of HipHop in SA as it does in the US…. mmmhmmm what do you think readers?
Click here for an interesting site on PAYOLA in the HipHop industry in the US.
GUFA also sent us this article:
“Here’s an interesting read from yesterdays The Star newspaper in the tonight section: smacks a little bit of payola (SA style) dont you think? make up your own mind.”
March 1, 2006
By Therese Owen –
Crisis management seems to be needed at YFM as their three prime- time deejays have announced their resignations within the last month. Fresh’s well-documented move to 5fm was announced a mere two weeks ago while S’bu Leope announced his resignation over the weekend. He has plans to start a production company.
The seeming implosion of YFM may be contributed to self-interest and own agendas by the deejays. The popular YFM deejays have bigger interests in the music industry. One only has to look at DJ Fresh, who regularly releases his popular dance CDs, or S’bu Leope, who is kwaito star, Mzekezeke, to see how much mula there is to gain as a deejay on this station. S’bu also owns his own record company, TS Records. Their artists conveniently fit into YFM’s format.
For the last 16 months there’s been increasing dissatisfaction among music industry players outside of the YFM cabal. There is much concern over deejays’ alleged abuse of power.
The deejays on YFM all came from relative obscurity. However, their increasingly powerful positions laid the door wide open for them to abuse that power. The rot set in with the now deceased Iggy Smallz, who was the music compiler.
Not only was Iggy a producer, he was also an artist, and owned publishing and record companies. Long-time Sunday evening deejay, Oskido, is part of BOP, owns Kalawa Jazmee and is one of the biggest producers in SA. He therefore has links to Mafikizolo, Trompies, Spikiri, Alaska, Bongo Maffin and T’zozo and Professor.
Music compiler Nutty Nice produces M’du, among others, and has released his own compilation. Unathi has just released her own CD. Her sidekick, Rudeboy Paul, also released CD compilations and has his own record label. Current station manager Bondo Ntuli has released a CD under his deejay persona, Big Black. S’bu Leope, who recently announced he is leaving the powerful afternoon drive-time, has Brown Dash, Ntando and Izinyoka as well as himself, Mzekezeke, in his TS Records stable. YFM’s ex-station manager, Greg Maloka also released his own compilations while there.
It begs the question, where does the rest of the SA music industry stand if they are not connected to the YFM cabal?
At Metro FM it is appears things are not so bad. Only Glen Lewis regularly releases as does music compiler DJ Fistaz.
With the departure of Fresh and S’bu Leope, one can only hope that YFM hires people who will not pick up on their supposed self-interest agendas, or at least do something to manage the problem.
If this free-for-all continues on YFM, it is doubtful the station will survive another nine years.
