The importance of supporting local artists

The music industry has undoubtedly taken a huge blow due to the current Covid-19 pandemic.

We’ve seen that big music festivals such as ‘Reading’, ‘Glastonbury’ and ‘Coachella’ have all been postponed, and smaller clubs and venues have also had to shut. Artists from all around the world have had to cancel their tours, with the live music industry set to lose around $5 billion! The direct impact of the pandemic on this industry is frightening, and will no doubt continue into the next couple of years.

I spoke to Charlie J, a 20-year-old music producer and rapper living in South Wales, about how lockdown has impacted his music career.

Can you provide us with a background of your music career?

I’ve been rapping now for 5 years, producing for 4 and have been taking it seriously for the last couple of years. Music is a form of expression for myself – whether that be on how I’m currently feeling, a message I want to portray or a conversation I want to have and it’s always been something I’ve enjoyed from the creation aspect all the way to performing. The feeling of creating a catchy melody on the spot and turning it into a full song is immense and I’m yet to experience a high that matches that of performing in front of a large crowd engaging with me and my music.

Describe to us what your music career was like before lockdown?

Before lockdown I was doing between 1 and 2 open mic nights a week. Most of these were around Cardiff, although I had started to venture out to Bristol to do more gigs as well. As everyone was starting to prepare for festival season, I had a good number of gigs lined up for the future as well – including ‘The Big Sesh’ at NosDa in Cardiff and a performance with other South Wales hip hop artists arranged by the Forte project in May. I’d also be attending a majority of the music events I could in order to network with other artists.

How has lockdown impacted your music career?

Lockdown put networking in person and live gigs on pause. Although I have done a few livestream gigs on the internet, I’ve always preferred connecting with people in real life rather than over the internet because on the internet there’s simply too many distractions. I’m fortunate to have a small studio set up in my home so I have been able to record a lot of new demos – more than 30 since the beginning of lockdown so far. Music videos have been replaced with lyric videos since I haven’t been able to film anything in person. However, because I have worked throughout lockdown, realistically I haven’t actually had that much extra time – I’ve just had to use the time I had differently.

Music videos have been replaced with lyric videos since I haven’t been able to film anything in person.

Do you think the lockdown will have a long-lasting impact on your music career? If so, why?

Yes, particularly if the government don’t do anything about it. A large number of venues around the country are in need of a bail out due to lost revenue during lockdown and if nothing is to be done then we could potentially lose them. On a positive note, the extra time I’ve put into making more songs will have a long-lasting effect due to me becoming better at my craft.

Do you think more could be done to support artists during this time? 

Yes. I’ve mentioned before about the music venues themselves and as with a large number of self-employed people more support could’ve been given financially.

Local artists are struggling massively due to the impacts of this pandemic. It’s important that we use this time to support them, whether that’s following their social media, streaming their music, attending their virtual gigs etc.

We can’t help with everything, but supporting local artists is something that we can all do easily. Music is such a powerful tool and so let’s use this pandemic to help those struggling with their music careers.

We can’t help with everything, but supporting local artists is something that we can all do easily.

Holly Hostettler-Davies

Featured image courtesy of Samuel Ramos via Unsplash. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image.