Producers don’t get enough credits for their crafts in Africa – Ajimovoix Drums

Oguntade Adewale Damola, music artiste known on stage as ‘Ajimovoix Drums’, says producers do not get credit for their craft in Nigeria.

He said this in an interview with Notjustok.com while commenting on happenings in the music industry.

“Back in old days, behind a physical yearly record copies do inscribes producers, sound engineer and even label mentions and credits which keeps the album more detailed without stress,” he said.

“But in this digital era, you hardly come across the producers name on DSPs which gives the producers less changes of getting known easily without any stress or making further research and getting his or her accolades even from his hard earn music production fans cause I believe producers too should have their fans to there craft too.

“Let’s just look at things this way; it’s very very easy for anybody to dance to an Afropop or instrumental generally without vocals altered on them. While we all know it’s damn not possible to dance to acapella or is it possible you dance to a voice over this shows a very great impact a producer implies into fusion before it becomes sounds.

“So they have made it look like a producer have got to do so many over jobs for years because he can get a recognition an artiste will get in 3-5 months which is still not worth it.

“But as for me I will say I’m blessed to be able to say that it doesn’t happen to me anymore, but we’ve all gone through it.

“I think a lot of it has to do with that, as a producer, you don’t have a real relationship with the artiste you are creating with and that’s due to the fact that you’re e-mailing beats. The most important relationship you can curate with someone is directly with the artiste.

“It’s not with the A&R, it’s not with their manager. You need to have a direct relationship, a working relationship with the artist you are working with. A lot of times, up-and-coming producers don’t get credit because the guys on the other side just don’t care.

“The artistes don’t care. For all you know they don’t even know what your name is or probably forgot your name and the A&R’s working in-between are juggling a million things. You are probably not getting paid much money and if it’s a mixtape placement, you probably aren’t getting paid anything so you are left in the dark. You did the beat, but you’re still a stranger. They aren’t gonna go that extra mile to do you any favors because they simply don’t care about you. So that’s the difference between having a real, true working relationship with an artist as opposed to being a beat maker and e-mailing your shit out, getting a placement, and getting pissed off you didn’t get credit.”