We also want to celebrate our blog friends, readers and other kindred spirits who share our passion for this music. We are convinced that the proliferation of African music blogsites is growing the audience base. We believe that this greater interest and exposure can only be good for music – old and new. In the past year we have probably seen more re-issues of old South African music than ever before – witness Chapita; the three great Next Stop Soweto volumes, the South African Funk Experience; Shangaan Electro; the Mahotella Queens/Soul Brothers compilation by Nascente to name just a few.
There have been some interesting debates on vinyl-digging colonialism and re-issues over at Africa is a Country – picking up on the music industry's rapidly shifting set of business and relationship parameters created through web 2.0.
We have witnessed the growth in some amazing efforts to build discographies and add to the documentation of South African music - witness Nick Lotay's incredible articles on the Mavuthela label or the As-shams discography created by matt from matsuli. We are particularly excited by the just emerging initiative of Siemon Allen over at flat international which we hope to support in whatever way we can.
We think, with a little mindfulness, our music blogsites can be good for music and for artists past and present. Electric Jive has been careful not to share free downloads of music that can be easily bought. We do believe we have helped grow the sales of some CDs by sharing links to sites where these can be purchased. In sum, we feel good about being part of what blogs and people around the world are able to do in sharing and promoting music. We look forward to sharing the next 100 posts with you!
We invite you to share a comment and any thoughts with us. This time next week one of the comments will be randomly selected (by number - not content) to “win” a free copy of the Chapita re-issue. Best wishes from us both. Fortherecord and Dabulamanzi.
