 Welcome back to Why In The Morning special thanks to Alex for that informative and amazing interview for sure it's time for another interview and this one is in the music business. I have a very special gentleman before I introduce him. White54 on Twitter, White54 on Instagram and White54 on Facebook is a way to interact with us. Hashtag is Why In The Morning, hashtag is Entrepreneurship Tuesday talking about music business. Yes, most of us just get into music for the fame Watanzania Onaita Kiki, but I have this gentleman, Sipran Ongeri, with 10 years experience in taxation, financial planning and most importantly he says in real life is in the music business now and is here to share some of the knowledge he has Karibusana. All right, your camera is number four. If I miss anything in the intro about your credentials and everything I like to give people a chance to introduce themselves so your time begins now. My name is Sipran Ongeri basically I'm a taxation and financial planning consultant. I deal with basically issue dealing with comprehensive financial planning, talk about investment management, cash flow management, you're looking at risk management, tax planning, education planning, estate planning, all this we put it together into a comprehensive financial plan and we also do business advisory for small businesses. The idea is giving them that feeling of basically working with one like the big four but with a smaller company that basically understands you much better. Apart from that, I'm basically doing music a lot. I've basically been in the music industry since 2014 with Jumbo Sound Records whereby we founded the company and I'm running it right now as the CEO. The CEO and founder of Jumbo Sound Records. All these things you've listed you do them in 24 hours. The same 24 hours I have in a day is the same 24 hours you have in a day and you manage to do all these things. Yeah, yeah, look, you know, man must live. Man must eat as well. And you know, the economy is not that palatable to us, you know, so we have to find a way of basically running a lot of different things and looking at the music perspective in as much as it's a beautiful kind of industry, you know, it's not very financially motivated. So sometimes you have to do something else to make sure that you are, you know, other things run. Traditionally, we don't see so many professionals coming into the music business. True. Yes. And reasons, they have their own reasons. Professionals have their own reasons. There's not enough money in that industry. It's a mixed up industry. Legislations are not clear in that industry and whatnot. You have a very good background in finance and all these things. How did you end up, how did you say, how did you get to that point where you say, all right, I'm going to invest my brains in this music business? It's, it's all about passion. You can see it's all about passion, you know, and a mix of different other things. Because when they were looking at music, the music industry, basically, it's not just the glamour and, and, and, you know, lights, camera kind of action stuff. It's a business that I call in what basically people call show business. It's showbiz, you know, just say it's showbiz, but they forget that there's the show part of it, then there's the business part of it. And you look at international companies that basically right now, they make billions in a year out of music. We don't need to go far and, you know, I can give you examples of, you know, the big companies abroad, but just go to TZ. You know, these guys are raking in a lot of money. Diamond is super big. With the Osafi label. With the Osafi label. So for me, I looked at that and I thought we still have an opportunity in Kenya that we can basically invest in that industry and make it more structuralized. You know, it doesn't have to be exactly how everybody else is doing it. You can do it differently. Every market is unique. Every market is unique. And everybody comes with their own experience and background. And I'm using that background. Basically, I have in finance and marketing and basically administration trying to make the show business. Now we are moving the artists are doing the show part of it. We're just doing great music and performance and the appearances, dressing up and Instagram and Facebook stuff. And for me, I'm taking part of the business part of it. So the business part of it is basically taking these exposure that you're getting as an artist, the big name that you're having out there and transform that into monetary values. And that's now the part that a lot of artists in Kenya and a lot of labels actually they are not transforming into a lot of them end up at the show part of it. Because it's glamorous. It looks good. It looks beautiful. It's very addictive as well. Very addictive. But then now you forget that at the end of the day, for an artist to be able to dress and come to a show and perform and do other stuff, you need money. Sustain. That's the money part. That's where basically we are trying to. All right. So that is where you come in as Jumbo. Jumbo sound records. And this has been alive since 2014. 2014. All right. March 17th. March 17th. You have exactly the birthday. Actually, it was a Monday. It was a Monday. All right. I like this. You probably remember the what was going on when you guys decided to make it official. Yeah, I do remember, you know, the whole idea of even sourcing a producer. You see, we wanted to create something that will give a lot of artists, especially because we set it up actually initially in Iceland's Komarok. And we are looking at capturing that market of the Komarok area, Iceland's area. So we are looking at post-buildings. Which is a very dense population. Very dense population. And we are looking at giving a service that artists could afford. But also make sure that we give quality. Now, getting the producer was a big, big thing because you looked around, walked and tried to get everybody, you know, like send your soundless what you've done until we actually centered in on Teddy Bee, who was a fast producer. And he did a great job. And from basically Teddy Bee and all the work that he did at that time, we still have the name, you know, that we are still trying to protect out there. All right. I feel that. I feel that. All right. So most people don't know that you were recording music back then? Yeah. You are recording artists. So you understand the business for sure. You see, for me, it's personal. Music is personal. I started something, I started doing to give a high school funkies and other stuff when we used to write songs with a friend of mine. His name is Robert. He's in the U.S. right now. And we used to write songs. And during funkies, we'll get an opportunity to go ahead and perform and sing. And people will see like how people were getting, you know, impressed by what we are doing. And then right after high school, between that time when you're basically getting into college and we started now recording, actually went to Cali Freco. They had a deal they used to call it Gengemenya. Gengemenya, they just, they were doing at 4,000, you know. And, and, and consider the fact that, yeah, it was 4,000. Consider the fact that actually we had gone to a couple studios. I don't like naming them. And some of them were charging at 17,000 back then. Back then. You can imagine. That was a two or five. And then we had these 4,000 deals we are like we are going. So we went, we recorded one song. And then Klemu is like, hey, come keep on recording. Actually we recorded a couple songs. You know, I can't give you the number, but it was a lot of music. And into it, I left. I went for studies. And at that time, then now there was this opportunity that I can do something. And that's something actually was me now trying to achieve what I could not achieve through myself, but through somebody else, which is now build a platform that I can give other artists and basically come and basically make it in the industry. All right. The reason I bring your history to the table here is I'd like to understand, since you have experienced recording with Caliph Records back then, now you're running a record label. What are some of the things you didn't know back then and you know right now? It's a lot. It's a lot. It's just one thing. When you see, I know the mind of an artist, right now I know the mind of an artist. The mind of an artist is you want to go to the studio today, record your song today. And tomorrow, basically, your song is out. You shoot your video and you're ready to go and start making money. But then right now coming from the industry, I understand that that's not what it is. Music is a slow process. It's not a one-time thing. Even the big guy is as you see. I don't ever, I told you, we used to be with Kinameja back then. You find about 20 of us in a story. Chasing the same dream. Chasing the same dream. And you know, he made it. We are still trying. I felt that. But you choose a good part. Yeah. So the thing you don't know is that music basically needs a lot of patience. I mean, patience. Music needs a lot of discipline. Music basically is not something that you can rush. Back then, you would be saying, why don't we have our song ready? You know, we recorded with a song like, you know, we said in a week it should be ready. And we get those questions right now. But you know, I try to explain a lot to the artists and tell them it's not a one-time thing. You know, sometimes we do the music, we mix and we master. And then we listen to it and then we're like, we need to do something else. We can't give it yet. You know, that's why sometimes you can basically delay your a little bit. It's not that we just want to delay you. Apart from that, other things that I would say that is different is the fact that music doesn't give you money immediately. It takes time. It takes time. Music in itself, actually, music is money. If you don't have money in music, then you must be super good so that somebody who has money will put your money on you. So the key word is money. It comes to music. But a lot of artists don't know that. They start, just record and audio. Put it on YouTube. Take it to radio stations. Push it on YouTube. And you realize there's a limit to how much you can push. Because you push too much, then you become a nuisance. You don't push, then your music doesn't go. So there's all these other little things that you realize, even knowing that music itself is not a one-man thing. Music, you can't be a Nile and expect to make it music. You must work with a big team. Music is all about working with the management team that basically can give you strategy. Currently where we are, music is not even about how good you are or how talented all these other stuff. It's all about strategy. Sadly, I have to agree. We've seen artists who are not very talented, but they are there. And we've seen artists who are super talented and still struggling. So strategy is very important. And this is always courtesy of the management team. Because you can do it. You can do it alone. As an artist, you can be the artist and be the promoter and be the one collecting the money. So a team is very important. These are some of the things you didn't know back then. You must get at it. I didn't know that. Nobody told me. Nobody told you you need a team for sure. So team is very important when it comes to the music. And that is what you're pushing, pushing, pushing. A team, a team, a team. Yeah, yeah. For us, basically the way we are looking at music is a little different. I would say there's a couple of people who are basically doing it the same way. But we're looking at an artist as a company. You know, this artist is a brand, is a company in themselves, and they must have a team that supports them. You know, the team could basically start from the production team. Some of the artists actually, we get some songwriters, they write a song for them, for them to just sing. You know, that's part of the team. You need a team to be posting your stuff, the publishing and all that stuff. That's a team. You need a team to be pushing your music out there because you cannot be an artist. And then we try to make them look professional. We don't want our artists running around town. For them, their work is basically you come, you record the music, you do the video, and you wait. We tell you to go for an interview, go for a show, you know, go for any other event that you need to go. So your work is to create, create, create, and the environment is created for you to create? That's the deal. You see, in music, it's all about creating and being creative, you know, and we even give a very ample environment for artists. We moved our studio to basically a suburb whereby there's no noise, you know, there's no disturbance of any form, you know, you can come any day, you can sit there at night and write music as much as you want. Which is very good for the process. Yeah, because as a creative, it works. So the artist is number one? That is number one, obviously. Without the artist, we're not there. Without the artist, there's no business. There's no business. We can end this conversation about the music business without talking about legislation. So first, I have friends in the music industry, they tell me they've been doing music for a while in Kenya, they've been uploading, but this one time, they got a chance to do music, to make a song with a British DJ who produced the song, they did the vocals, they sent it, and then the song was released under the label in which the producer is signed to. And when they got their first check from this one song, it was bigger than everything they've ever and from their music they've been releasing in Kenya. What is the difference? What is the problem? You see, there's a couple things that go into that. Number one, some of our CMOs and some of these companies that basically put the music on our platform, they take a lot of money. Right now, middleman, you mean the person who is going to put you on streaming sites. And actually, there are so many. You see, you have that guy who come and tell you, I'm going to put your music on skiz, I'm going to put your music on boom play, you know, all these platforms. You know, that guy is already, yeah, he's already a middleman. And then this guy goes to Cellulant, for example, I mean, there's so many other there. That's the second one. Cellulant is the one now does the coding for skiz. And then he goes to skiz. You see, now when the money comes in, skiz keeps 70%. You see, which is already killing. Yes, which is very, it's up for debates, by the way. Honestly, these are real figures. I'm not making figures. They keep 70. They give 30 to listen to Cellulant. Cellulant keeps 60 out of 30. You see, then there's that guy, when you go to your music, then for him, whatever agreement you have, maybe keeps another 30%. You see, by the time I guess to you, it's probably 6%. Of the total. Of the total, it could be less than 6%. And ideally, it should be 30. And you still haven't taken out taxes. Yes. You see, now if you made a million, now you're going to get something like 60K or something. Yes. You made 100,000, it's nothing. It's honestly nothing. By the time you make 100,000 out of the skiz attuned itself, and that's actually the only one that works. So far. That's the one that works so far. You are talking about 6%. Now you saw the other time, MCSK, they are giving 25K or something. We had issues. Now, the issue is basically, we are not putting the artists first. Because as an artist, as the CMOs, we are supposed to remember one thing. If the artists don't make music, we are not there. We are not in business. So they should be in quality. Yeah, they should. I don't see why maybe Skiza, which is Afarikon, basically is keeping 70% for giving us a platform. Because what they give is a platform. They don't basically distribute music for you. They don't tell you. They just give you the platform. Yeah, you get the code, and then you are supposed to. So that is Afarikon. That is one distributor that you have a problem with. It's out of the clear. Because why are you keeping 70%? And I'm the one who was telling my people to subscribe. To subscribe, and you are the person who recorded the music. I don't record the music, the videos. All right. So what do you think is the future of distribution deals to cut out this middleman and everything? How are you guys doing it, or what is the future of it? The future is just one basically. Record labels, they be record labels. They do their publishing. That's it. If Skiza wants your music, they come to the record labels. They get it directly from there. It doesn't go through the middleman. All right. Because at the end of the day, I mean, we're trying to structure all these other things. Even the press can come and all that stuff. But at the end of the day, there's really no money coming in. Because there's a lot of people, because press says we have to pay for our the management. All right. Which does not make sense. So the record labels need to publish their music. If it means creating your own website, do it. Actually, for us, we are basically right now working on that. All right. So the record label needs to publish their music. Publish your own music. All right. We're living in the age of independent artists. I'm pretty sure you've had this term so many times. And record labels execs don't really like it. They don't like it because you don't want somebody taking part of the business. All right. But what is trending now is record labels given independent artists distribution deals. Yes. Where you get the artists doing their own thing, but they bring the music and then they get distribution deals to cut out the middlemen so that their money can come in one basket and then just get their cuts. Is this something you're offering or planning to offer? Actually, we offer that. But you see, it's not like what you really want. You want somebody you bring on board and you can stay with them and mold them in the way that you feel that the industry is basically going. And when you have a lot of independent artists, there are people who come here today. The next time they are somewhere else. And you see now, even if you're working on a strategy, it's very difficult for you to basically use it. Working with somebody like that? Yeah. Because now, today, the next time is another record label. They tell him something different. So it's very difficult for you to follow that process that you're basically working on. So it's something we do. We still do it. But we always encourage somebody to come on board and basically people, talented artists, come on board and stay with us. For give us some time, give us two, three years or something like that, that we can basically mold you in ways that we have seen things working. The industry is a different animal out there. For sure. It's not as easy as you may think. Many heads. Yeah, it's crazy. But the indie guys are there. The indie guys are there. And the industry needs everybody anyway. Yeah, basically we need everybody because we also need to find different ideas from other people. And actually, even a lot of record labels, they sign actual artists from the indie guys. They will say, hey, come on, I see what you're doing. People have been doing their own thing for a while. Yeah, they've been doing it. And you have the stamina. You know, we see we can make it. And if we give you some little push, then we can make some billions. So that you don't start from scratch. As always. So as an artist out there, even if you're looking to get signed or even if you're looking for a deal, do your own thing. That is something you don't have to say. Because I won't notice you if I don't see you doing something. There is very little times that I will basically get somebody who has never recorded and identify that this is actually a record artist. Because how do you tell? And how many times am I going to be working around the clubs? And try to scout and find them out. Yeah, try to scout and find that guy. But we have actually found those artists. There's one artist I got from Mombasa. Her name is Frida Karambu. Very good in gospel music. She raised her first song and her next song, basically they are ready. But you know, there's those strategies like I said. All right. Yeah, she's very good. But as an artist, try to do something first before you come to us, you know. Show us, I've recorded this and this is how I sound, you know, because to me and voice notes on WhatsApp. It's kind of unconventional. Send a demo. Send something. Yeah, it's not only a professional result. So I don't know whether you recorded that. Yeah, okay. It seems you've seen a lot of catch fish in the industry. You need to be very careful. All right, that is jumbo sound records in the national. All right. So before you get to giving the viewers tips on how they can catch from their music, I'd like to know as a record label exec, when it comes to gospel music and secular music, when it's presented on the table, is it all business or gospel music is treated like something different? We just like to know, because we keep watching gospel artists on TV and we don't understand the dynamics. Sometimes they're here, sometimes they're there. So how do you treat it as a label? Now, look at it this way. Show biz, show, there's the business. And like I told you, the artist does the show part. They can do, they will say you are praising and all these other stuff they will say. That is a show part when it comes to gospel music. When it comes to us now, it's a business part. And you see, even church makes business. For sure. You know, Torzadaka, you know. Kenya is one of the biggest church markets, markets for the church. So we are not different. At the end of the day, we basically have to cover expenses. We have to make sure the artist looks good because you don't look good. People won't even like your music. Facts, facts. So the artists will do their show part and we'll do the business. At the end of the day, it's business. At the end of the day, it's music business. Self-explanatory and no need for that. By the way, let me tell you one thing. You will actually, sometimes you lay blame on even the gospel artists and say, why are they trying to be secular? Which, of course, a lot of them are. But it's because of the industry that we're operating in. There's no money. And the artist still needs to eat, needs to feed, needs to do, you know, ABCD. There is some things that you have to do to make that money. They came here. Sacrifices. Our industry is not as structured as it should be. So the money doesn't come as fast as you want it to. And you still have to eat. So what do you do? You know, you do some other things to make money. Thank you very much for the insight. And thank you very much for being honest. As we wrap this up, I'm an artist out there and an artist is watching us right now. And they make really good music. The chances of getting signed are very low because there are not enough labels in Kenya. Tips on how they can cash from their music. As an artist right now. As an artist out there. Who's not signed? Or yes, let's talk to the artists who are not signed right now. What actually I usually tell a lot of artists is for me, there are four major ways. For four major ways, I basically classify them into four. The first way is basically by putting your music out there. Make sure that you promote it. And you're going to spend. There is a problem, you're going to spend. You're going to spend some money, push your music out there. Get it to the radio presenters and then to the DJs and all these other people. Get the music out there. Streaming sites. Streaming sites. Before we go to the streaming sites. I want you to get the money from Royalties fast. Which is not a lot. But it can, you know, put us some expenses. Put your music out there so that at the end of the day you may get something from maybe Prisk or Kamp. Because at the end of the day, these guys are there. They are collecting the money. Number two, after that, you do something we call performances. Try Nishe Lukianza. If you are not known, you're going to do a lot of exposure. Exposure, pain shows. You're going to do a lot of them. But don't do too much. Because there is, if you do too much of them. Dilute the brand. The promoters, they talk. They'll be, I want this guy to come to my show. How much did you pay him last time? Say I paid him by exposure. And then now everyone is going to call you by exposure. Exposure, all right. So you have to get a limit of how much you can do for exposure. Once I get over one beer, after I get over one can, after I get over one can, that's good enough. And then as you keep on going. But your price grows from there. Your price will grow. So that's number two by our performances. Number three is basically match and Nishe. And match and Nishe is basically, you can create your own brand. Because after you've had all these royalties, your music is playing out there. You're going to shows, you're creating a brand. Create your own match and Nishe, t-shirt. A little t-shirt. It doesn't have to be like a suit. Claspability. Swap water. To support. Kado go to your auntie and uncles. And you can always start from somewhere. Because you have to start actually small. Make all the stupid mistakes when you are small. When you grow up, you have done all these mistakes. Because you don't want those mistakes up there. So create your match and Nishe. Ambands. So many places they can go. Yeah, you can even do your own CDs and compile them. It's like the ghost parties. You can even have CDs. I've seen an artist who did cups. Yeah. You do your own cups. So you can that when you're performing, even churches, churches want to support a lot. They'll buy your CDs that are not going to songs. That money can be plowed back to your business. You can go back into your business. Now with all these three, what you're looking at is now the big one. This is where the money is. Basically, endorsements. Music in itself, even Jay-Z doesn't make all the money from just music. Endosments. You get somebody like being sponsored by Nike. They make, that's where the money is. Sizes right now, doing a lot of what is doing with the soft care. That's where the money is, you see. So all this you're doing is actually building you for endorsements. It's leading to the top of the tree. I'm telling you, the only thing that will work right now is endorsements. So that's what you're supposed to work with. So start little, keep on growing. And endorsements will always come for the big artists. They will always come for the big artists. We'll always have to start with free shows. You have to start with free shows. With so much in that is on the side and building the brand. Thank you very much for coming through to Hawaii in the morning. Jumbo Sound Records is the name of the company. How can they get to contact you guys? I'm basically on social media. Jumbo Sound Records, Jumbo Sound RECZ. You can get all our contacts basically from there. Very soon we are launching our website. And the website is basically going to be also streaming music. You can download our music from there. Fully-fledged music website. Yeah, fully-fledged music website. You can book artists from that website. We, it's taking a little longer to build, but it's on track. And like I said, we are basically releasing two albums. One of them by the end of basically in December. And the other one could be around that time or maybe in January. All right. Thank you. We had a question on our Facebook. And this is basically around business as well. How do you prefer your transactions? This is directed to you as well, the viewer. It's on our Facebook. You can comment on the pinned post on Facebook. So we can share it at the end of the show. But we'd like to get to know Cyprian's preference. How do I like your transactions? Is it cash, CAD or mobile money? Mobile. I just do mobile money. And why? It's very convenient. And I can tell you, it's not from the financial planning perspective. It's the worst thing you'll ever do. You should do cash. You know, when you're paying money in cash, you fill the pain. Mobile, there's no pain. All right. CAD, there's no pain. Because you don't see it's going. Yeah. So you advise people to pay in cash. So that they can fill the pain. You fill the pain so you save it. You save it. All right. Thank you very much for the insight. I appreciate you. Keep doing what you're doing. And I'm looking to see Jumbo's sounds at the Nairobi Stock Exchange. Yeah, I'll keep you updated. You'll keep you updated. All right. Yes, we've come to the end of our second interview of the day. Jumbo sounds records. You can find them on social media as that. We are the CEO and founder on set with us. He gave us some tips. Well, now we can maneuver in the music business. We still have another musician for entrepreneurship Tuesday. So if you're an artist out there, this is that day for you. Alex is coming up next. Don't go nowhere. Don't type that out.