BY FIONA MOTSA
MBABANE – Perhaps 2022 has seen an increasing number of music conferences being held for the benefit of artists as a means to grow artist capacity.
The MTN Bushfire Festival Arts Round Table, in conjunction with Africa Rising Music Conference (based in Germany) and The 1020 Cartel, have been know been known to host conferences for artists .
There is a new kid on the block, Antidote Culture foundation, which recently held the Vukubone Music Conference at the Theatre Club and Alliance Francaise in Mbabane on the 25th-27th of August 2022.
Eswatini Positive News was fortunate to get in touch with Sizo Hlophe who is one of the Co- Founders of Antidote Culture Foundation and get answers based on the Conference they hosted.
EPN: What was the impetus/ motivation of hosting a music conference?
- The motivation behind Vukubone Music Conference was purely need-based. Music and the arts in general in the country are seen as a hobby. With the country’s high youth unemployment rate, we do want to see the creative sector become a part of the solution to reduce youth unemployment. Our entry is of course music, and the music conference was purely to impart knowledge and have discussions that help in finding local solutions in moving our music forward.
EPN: Please give us 3 positive outcomes that came about as a result of holding the music conference.
- I think it was important to highlight and speak to some of the great artists that came before us, in Nana Magagula and Smiles Makama. We believe this was important for the younger artists to understand what it took for these artists to be world-touring artists coming from Eswatini.
- Overall artists coming together was a major outcome, we believe bringing artists together creates the community needed for collective growth. The networking that was happening in between the sessions was very important.
- Archiving was a big element of the conference. People who couldn’t make the event will find the sessions online on our YouTube channel. These will be announced soon.
EPN: Who were your partners/sponsors who assisted you in making the conference possible?
- The conference was produced by Antidote Music and Antidote Culture Foundation in partnership with Music in Africa Foundation, supported by the German Federal Foreign Office, Siemens Stiftung, and Goethe Institute. We also had local partners, Destiny Music and Alliance Francaise.
EPN: Mention some of the challenges you encountered in preparing and hosting the music conference.
- We eliminated most challenges of putting the event together by building a team of young people who we felt had a great future in moving the creative space forward in the country. Everyone just pulled their weight and as the event came together, everything was easy. There is still a challenge in reaching artists in the country, which is a sector problem in just disseminating information.
EPN: Can we expect another Vukubone Music Conference next year?
- This was the inaugural event, we want to do more, and add an activity to the cultural calendar of the country and possibly the continent. We plan to do Vukubone again, and we hope to cover sector conversations, where artists can speak in a unified voice. We are also planning for it to be accompanied by artistic showcases, and talks and also attract professionals from across the region (Africa). It definitely seems the arts are headed the right direction and we hope to see more of the arts in the Kingdom of Eswatini achieve imminently and create a vibrant arts economy as the goal is to monetize the arts.
