The making of Dalom Music
Monkagedi Gaothobogwe | Tuesday December 2, 2014 14:31
He and other ‘80s musicians were facing extinction by the late ‘90s when big record companies, which had been making money with their music in the past decade, were experiencing sustained competition from a new genre called Kwaito.
Many of his peers had to either adapt and a few did. For Tshanda the difficult period would be the beginning of a rebirth.
He would form his own music company, Dalom, named after one of his hit disco tracks of the late ‘80s.
One throw of the dice and he got it right with the release of Makhirikhiri an album, which did very well to adapt to the demands of the time.
“It did very well. It was my first album under my own record label. I think it surprised many people. They were wondering whether I was changing styles. But I just wanted people to see that as an artist I am capable of anything,” he explained.
The Dalom Music stable would later have under its wings Splash, Dalom Kids, Machikos, and Patricia Majalisa. Dalom Music also did projects for various other artists outside the stable.
Since then Dalom Music has developed their own unique strategy of selling music to their fans.
Tshanda said that they have also devised a social media strategy to market their albums and they are reaping the rewards.
“We marketed the newest album, Delele two months before the release via social media. We would also invite some of our fans into our studios to listen.
They talked about it a lot on social media and by the time we hit the shelves, over 25,000 copies were sold in two weeks,” Tshanda said.
The intimacy with the fans has seen him committing to doing annual shows in Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa. He says he also tours England every other year.
“When I started this company, there was strong competition from Kwaito, but I always saw Kwaito fading, even the afro-house music.
I remained true to the brand of the music that had made Matshikos, Splash, and Dalom Kids, I always believed in their uniqueness. The fans proved me right; because since then most of our albums sold platinum or gold, and our shows are always sold out wherever we are,” he said.