‘It was like a musical workation’

A first-of-its-kind incubator programme is helping indie musicians think of their art as a business, to stay creative longer

All the way back in 2015-16, Tanish Thakker began working on an incubation programme that came to fruition last year as a pilot project but was officially launched last month. “Coming from a start-up incubator and venture capitalist background, I saw how incubation programmes impact overall growth of the start-up ecosystem. Then I realised that no one was doing this for the independent music landscape in India,” says Thakker,  the founder of Amplify Music India (AMI) and director of the music agency Gatecrash. Gatecrash is a Mumbai-based music agency founded by  Emmanuelle De Decker. The artist development project helps artistes across different genres develop their business, enhance creativity and build social networks in the music industry. It helps them marry their artistic vision to entrepreneurial and personal development.

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“The indie music scene in India,” says Thakker, “focuses on getting more shows for musicians, managing a particular artiste, but no one looks at it from an overall development perspective.” In a landscape where most artistes follow the DIY approach, before a label or management agency takes over, they need to look at their work as a business, and themselves, as an entrepreneur.

Artistes such as Tribemama Marykali, Shreyas Iyengar, Mannequin Disorder, Saachi, Gouri & Aksha, Micah were part of the first AMI

So AMI covers the business side of creativity, such as accounting practices, registrations and other elements such as developing your brand, social media and content strategy, copyrights and loyalties…etc. The creative workshops don’t help a musician play an instrument better; instead they are designed to help them think about their art in a different way. “There are business subjects along with creative workshops, producer and recording consultation, performance enhancement, vocal help, wellness and mental well-being,” says Thakker.

The sessions are conducted online over six weeks by around 40 industry experts from India, Canada, France and the UK. It culminates in a week-long residency in Goa for offline workshops. “Goa was a musical workation,” says Pritesh Prabhune aka Prabhuneigh, a Mumbai-based music producer, sound engineer, and stage manager. Prabhune is also the producer of Mumbai-based hip-hop rap duo Won Tribe, which comprises Pratika Prabhune and Ashwini Hiremath (aka Krantinaari).

Won Tribe

The week included wellness and mental health-related workshops such as yoga and meditation. The highlight was the collaborative song-writing workshop where the group was divided into five teams and each developed a unique song. “Pratika’s team wrote a song within 20 minutes and then chilled by the pool,” laughs Prabhune. One August 27, they played for an audience in Goa.  “We played individual sets, but most of us joined in on each other’s songs,” says Prabhune.

Only artistes who have already released some singles, an EP or albums, and music videos could participate in AMI, and there was a preference towards those who had toured. The idea is to not kick-start a career, but to help grow and scale up an existing one. “Our goal is to help artistes develop long-term sustainable career goals within the music industry,” says Thakker.

Akshay Kapoor and Tanish Thakker

While this may leave out ones who need guidance the most, Akshay Kapoor believes that even artistes with some experience might find it difficult to negotiate industry’s workings and structure veiled. Kapoor is the founder of  The Indian Music Diaries, a digital platform for independent music, and is also an A&R (artiste and repertoire) manager at the French record label and music distributor, Believe India. He compares the incubation programme to an MBA course, where some sort of experience shortens the learning curve.

Prabhune, who has been in the music industry for roughly 15 years, echoes the sentiment. “Right in the first week, we were so inspired that Pratika and I started working on our EP which is almost done,” says the 35-year-old. “It [the programme] has made us a little more conscious about how we need to promote our music even after it is launched. [Usually] Once we release it, we just leave it there [for people to discover].” In the third week, Won Tribe worked on an exercise to identify their strengths, topics to work on and whom to collaborate with.

Currently, entry to AMI is free and the artistes are handpicked by Thakker on the basis of how diverse and unique their music is, and how serious the musicians are about their career. It is funded by Canada Music Incubator, Institute Français and the French Embassy in India.

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