Project Background
About Point Black
Point Black is a marketing and content agency whose mission is to build an ecosystem that allows brands and individuals the opportunity to reach their desired audiences in the most effective way possible – with a focus on promoting and celebrating Africa’s deep cultural history and diversity while using modern forms of communication as the conduit.
Point Black’s slogan is “Inspired. Innovative. African.”. As a company we aim to find inspired and innovative solutions to uniquely African situations that are formulated by Africans.
Since its inception Point Black has developed platforms and programs that promote and empower African Creatives via education, skill building and providing networking opportunities
Project Background
In 2019 Point Black and Goethe-Zentrum Harare/ Zimbabwe German Society collaborated on the Pungwe Sessions Vol. II project The overall goal of The Pungwe Sessions project was to create a vehicle for artists to build marketable brands and songs that will provide recurring revenue in show bookings and royalties for years to come. This was to be achieved by collaborations with established international artists and access to marketing channels which were facilitated by Point Black.
The Pungwe Sessions Vol. II project was started in September 2019 and produced a 13-song album that was released on June 5, 2020.
Already the project has achieved several milestones which include allowing Zimbabwean acts an opportunity to work with a platinum artist such as Rymez. These valuable experiences have been documented in a documentary.
All of the singles have already enjoyed radio support across all 3 of Zimbabwe’s major radio stations and in South Africa. The singles have also already received incredible support from streaming sites such as Apple Music and Spotify who have placed the songs on prominent playlists.
The Pungwe Sessions project included training workshop conducted by the Chief Operations Officer of CAPASSO, Mr. Wiseman Ngubo and sessions with Rymez. The sessions included lessons on songwriting, production, branding, networking, Intellectual Property rights, sample collaboration contracts and split sheets.
Most recently Point Black was able to secure bookings for artists on the Pungwe Sessions at Shoko Festival 2020. Shoko Festival are a client of Point Black. The performances from the digital festival can be found here.
While working with artists on the album and within these workshops we realised that a more comprehensive educational program needs to be developed for artist that covers their specific needs.
Objectives of The Artist Accelerator Project
With the next iteration of this program Point Black is looking to address the following issues.
Educate Artists on the Music Industry
Prepare a series of Digital Workshops and interviews to educate artists on relevant information
Provide more educational resources for artists such as a free ebook and a series of online resources
The eBook will also contain a number of free template contracts that artists can just print and use freely.
Provide solutions to artists who are suffering from a drastic loss in revenue due to The Covid-19 pandemic.
Provide artists with mentoring from industry professionals.
Educational Resources
A valuable lesson learned with the last project was the lack of educational resources created specifically for African creatives.
Point Black would like to work with industry professionals to develop a comprehensive set of guidelines specifically for African musicians that will be distributed widely for free to help them understand the steps followed from creating their art to registering, distribution and revenue collection.
This educational resource will live online as a free resource for any artist or other music professional.
Point Black would like to ask you to assist in developing this educational content.
We would also like to request if you will be willing to take on an artist as a mentee. Point Black will design and administer the mentorship program but it will entail 1-2 calls with the artist every month to provide them with the opportunity to ask questions specific to their career and possible networking opportunities. We would like to operate this mentorship program for at least 6 months.
Methodology
Because of Covid19 travel and social distancing restrictions, Point Black will look to implement this project remotely wherever possible. Below are two references for how we wish to present the information gathered from you - the music industry professional.
List of Topics
Below are a list of the topics we would like to cover in the workshops.
Music Production
Coping with the effects of COVID 19
Festivals
Intellectual Property & Copyright
DJ Set Performance
Streams of Income
Stage Performance
Image and Branding
Marketing Your Music
Financial Literacy and planning
If you would like to be part of this project please do contact Phil by clicking this link.