As the entertainment industry continues to hit new heights and open new doors, opportunities continue to reveal themselves. However, the gap between the secular entertainment industry and gospel industry in Africa appears far wider now, even more so than before, and you might be wondering why this is the case.
Looking at the industry, more secular entertainers are bagging more brand and ambassadorial deals than those in the gospel music industry and though secular entertainers seem to be doing their homework, you can’t completely write-off gospel musicians.
A few things can be highlighted as reasons why these set of musicians in the country appear unnoticed by big companies.
1) 𝙈𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙂𝙤𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙡 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙨 𝘿𝙤𝙣’𝙩 𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙠 𝙪𝙧𝙗𝙖𝙣:
As has always been the case, most gospel musicians appear as urban gospel artists, but still think traditionally or have a traditional mindset. Being an urban gospel singer characterizes an artist as “commercial” and this requires them to think commercially too. What is the essence of an artist doing commercial music and still going back home with an empty pocket?
The gospel industry has some big names with enough brand deals in countries like Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, etc but it still appears to be very difficult in countries like Cameroon, possibly because most Cameroonian artists have not understood the requirements of being brand ambassadors which is far from just doing good music.
An argument could be raised that every artist has an audience. With the industry itself being a work in progress, most gospel artists don’t know their audience yet. Even if they do, the audience doesn’t attract companies who want a larger audience to sell their brand and products. The secular artists are winning big in this area.
3) 𝙇𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙡𝙚 𝙤𝙧 𝙣𝙤 𝙞𝙣𝙛𝙡𝙪𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚:
It’s not about favoritism or discrimination. Every brand or company is looking for that artist who has got influence and who can influence their brand out here. The gospel artists in the country appear to have little or no influence and this is in line with the point above. If an artist can’t calf out his/her audience, they won’t even know their influence, so how will they convince companies to adopt them as their ambassadors?
4) 𝙇𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙡𝙚 𝙤𝙧 𝙣𝙤 𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙮:
No one needs to be told the importance of airplay. Most gospel artists are suffering from little or no airplay. Most of their released songs hardly get airtime and even when they do, it appears inconsistent and as such, reduces and dampens its visibility and awarenesses. Airplay guarantees publicity for the artist and makes them known and attractive to their audience.
5) 𝑳𝒂𝒄𝒌 𝒐𝒇 𝑯𝒊𝒕 𝒔𝒐𝒏𝒈𝒔
In Cameroon, very few Gospel artists can boast of hit songs. It could be arguable that not all songs are supposed to be hits, but no arguments need to be raised as far as the importance of hit songs are concern.
There has been many hit songs from the secular industry in the past five years, and these songs have gone on to secure brand deals, more publicity and awareness for the artists, but that isn’t the case when the gospel sector is concern.
All the above reasons and more than you can list yourself have made brand deals far fetched from these artists. If will suffice you to know that there are artists who have been in the urban gospel scene for over ten years but are still unknown. How then can they convince the companies to give them deals? It’s not like they haven’t been working hard. However, they may not have been working smart.
There is a generation of new urban gospel singers who are considering the aspects of branding, commercializing and more and it won’t be long until they start securing major endorsement deals.
