Bang!Gae Ward Off Industry Challenges
Boitumelo Khutsafalo | Monday June 25, 2018 15:16
Many with great potential succumbed to the challenges and fell off the radar while others have managed to stay afloat and make their breakthrough. Amongst those who managed to ward off the challenges in the industry and persevered is a group of young artists and producers called Bang!Gae.
It started as a group of friends in their early varsity days in 2010 that set up a studio in Mogoditshane named Stainless Steel. The idea came about from a group of Sound Engineering students who later moved it to Block 8 and called it Bang!Gae.
The studio, currently under the management of Oarabile Somolekae, Tsaone Sekambo, Tshepo Moanakwena and Bokang Makubate was set up purely for recording purposes, but it has since grown in leaps and bounds to become a multimedia company that offers services that include radio and television adverts.
The group has managed to produce some works for artists including Young Black, Ducelo and Mafoko. And despite the many challenges, amongst them lack of enough capital, the group as young as they were, have achieved a lot.
In 2014, the group raked in three awards at the Yarona FM annual music awards.
They were awarded for best producer, best Motswako and song of the year. They have also performed at the Swaziland’s annual Hipnotik festival as the first Botswana artists to do so. They have been invited three times and performed alongside the region’s well-known acts including Cassper Nyovest.
Back home, however, the group feels that they have not really been given enough support by radio. “Radio play is not really up to where we expect. We get more support on social media platforms. We try to reach out to them (radio), but they promise and sometimes will play a song once and that is it,” one of the artists from group, Makubate, who trades as MiZee, told Showtime on Friday.
As is the outcry from many other upcoming artists, Bang!Gae artists have had to deal with a situation where local promoters shun them for their shows.
MiZee said local promoters at times do not want to diversify their lineups when they organise shows and tend to favour certain genres and artists. He feels those who have powers should try and create little platforms, especially for up and coming artists.
“We try to reach out to promoters, but all we get is beating around the bush. We end up giving up,” he said. He added such challenges have motivated them to do their own promotions although lack of capital hinders their efforts.
He said the challenges facing upcoming artists need all of them to sit down and see how best they can overcome them as a collective. Even with such challenges the group continues to push forward and is currently working on some projects to be released in September.