BACA president gives advice to artistes

President of the Barbados Association of Creatives and Artistes (BACA), Sean “Apache” Carter is encouraging artistes where possible in the present COVID-19 environment to write and produce music for public enjoyment.

Speaking to The Barbados Advocate recently, he said “as much as possible try to keep writing, try to keep recording, try to keep putting music out there and I hope that there will be a greater collaborative effort in these times where studios will be willing to work with artistes and they work out some kind of split as it relates to the revenue earning.”

Carter also highlighted the significance of artistes taking steps to have measures in place so they can make money from the work they upload on different online platforms. He spoke about the use of International Standard Recording Code (ISRC), codes when placing music on sites such as YouTube.

“We make our videos, whether it is a lyric video or it is an actual official video or it is with the still shots, don’t upload your music to YouTube without an ISRC code or it is invisible to the system which means it will not be monetized.”

He added, “I think a lot of artistes are aware now of the various distribution companies that they can use… [Some] actually assign ISRC codes to the various songs and then they will upload them to the different platforms. So people pay a one off fee upfront so then whatever money is made, goes directly to the artiste. Some people, they don’t take an upfront fee but what they will do is take like a nine percent or a 10 percent of any earnings that come from the streaming of the music. That is basically in these times the direction you have to go in with there being no live performances [and] no tours. You just have to try to get your music out there.” (MG)