Isaiah Katumwa says balancing international and local acts has been his greatest challenge so far.
COURTESY PHOTO
Uganda’s celebrated saxophonist Isaiah Katumwa has advised young artists to create and maintain authentic brands in order to succeed in the music industry.
“You have to separate a person from a brand, there are different things I do on my personal page that are different from what I share on my fans page. Branding is all about where you want to go and because you have established where you want to go everything you do is dictated by that fact,” he said.
Mr Katumwa was addressing students of music at the end of a two-day music workshop at The African Institute of Music in Lubowa, Wakiso District on Friday. This was ahead of his anticipated show tomorrow to commemorate the International Jazz Day alongside Jazz producer Chris Lang, Grammy Award nominee Darren Rahn and multiple Grammy award winner Angelique Kidjo.
“We want to impact on the young generation and many young talented people who need just a push to make it in the music industry. Young musicians don’t know such basic things they want to succeed but they don’t know how, it’s very important to avoid getting personal on your social media sites by differentiating the person from the brand by knowing how you want people to know you” he said.
Mr Rahn urged the music students to identify their target audience in terms of imagery and definition before posting on social platforms promoting their brands.
“Be careful about what you share, a lot of musicians tend to be emotional sometimes you feel the temptation to post something like venting on social media which is not a good idea because it can affect your image, let the music speak for itself and keep the social media pages very professional,” he said.
Mr Katumwa also gave out music instruments to the students at the end of the workshop.
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