No Disrespect

Last Friday, I wrote a feature on the decreased number of live bands and performances with live bands at this year’s Namibia Annual Music Awards, especially in comparison with last year.

Also keeping in mind that the organisers had placed quite a heavy emphasis on the introduction of live bands at last year’s awards, I deemed it fit to address the fact that there were less live bands at this year’s awards.

For some or the other reason, the article must have been misconstrued. I in no way whatsoever subliminally, subconsciously, indirectly or directly intended to attack artists who use backtracks.

With all the love I have for live music, I respect all artists in the industry, whether backtracking or live, I even respect Hansolo’s and LeSean’s rap game.

With that said, writing about music for some time now, I got an opportunity to be exposed to all types of music in the industry. I got to see what happens behind the scenes of different performances and I came to understand how much work and effort is put into an artist appearing in front of a crowd to give their all to the audience.

I have seen the effort put into performing with a live band and performing live. I prefer live. This is without dismissing the great ability to entertain with backtracking. I am of the opinion that performing live and performing with a live band adds so much value to any performance.

Apart from that, it gives the artist the ability to feed off the energy of the crowd and based on that somewhat control the performance rather than just been confined to the track they are singing along to.

Now, I am no music expert, and I know that performing with a live band is not as as easy as popping into the shop to buy a loaf of bread. I do understand that some artists have killer choreography that might make singing live difficult and that is all well.

I understand that when performing with a live band, the band does not just rock up on that day and voilà magic. I understand that there are rehearsals to be paid for and band members to be paid.

However, we are at a time in our industry where we want our sound to not only go beyond our borders in Africa but even cross the oceans and I am sure there is no way we can sell ourselves out here as a backtracking music industry.

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with backtracking, it sometimes is necessary, but we should still push towards cultivating a live music culture in our industry.

– @ndapewa_shapwa on Twitter; Ndapewoshali Shapwanale on Facebook

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