Last week we brought you some incredible music from UK based artist Nefer Davis. This week I wanted spread the word about Nefer’s ongoing Kickstarter Campaign.
For those of you who may be unfamiliar with Kickstarter, essentially Kickstarter is a platform where creative artists(authors, musicians, filmakers, artists etc.,) can create a campaign to fund their next project. Backers of the project can make pledges at different levels and these provide different incentives at different levels of funding for the backers. Anything from in-home concerts, to autographed limited edition cd’s to you name it. If the project does not receive through pledges all the funds needed to complete the project the project will not be funded. Basically an all or nothing proposition.
I wanted to take a little time to explain the concept and to think about what that really means as it relates to a lot of the great artists that we profile here in general and Nefer specifically, who operate outside of the traditional major/mid-major/indie label business model. Truly artists who are doing if for themselves, you know the ones who answer their own phones, emails and send their own tweets. This is an opportunity through the help and support of backers to bring some music to the marketplace that otherwise may never see the light of day.
Even though music has the illusion that it’s free it’s not. At least not the production of music and I won’t even begin a lecture on varying degrees of quality when it comes to production. We’re not talking about paying Dr. Dre $50,000 for a track here, we’re talking about enabling an artist to fully realize his vision for a project that has been a lifetime in the making. This oftentimes takes the help, aid and assistance of an entire team to bring the vision to fruition.
For more information on Nefer Davis and his campaign you can visit his Kickstarter page here.
Ivan Orr is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, performer, and writer. A native of Charlottesville, Virginia Ivan was involved with the forming and nascent days of The Music Resource Center as its first Program Director. A graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Music, Ivan currently resides in Richmond, VA where he maintains an active performance and production schedule while serving as the Music Editor for Grown Folks Music, a position he has held since 2010.
