Some musicians are in the present day using publicity stunts to popularize their songs soon after release or when the plan is on the verge of execution, but analysts have trashed such stunts.
Publicity stunts involve musicians creating reality in a way that attracts attention.
They may either fake a conflict with another artist over their new song or create a scandal. The behavior is common among some Malawian musicians.
However, none of the musicians from the motherland has admitted employing such tactics to sell a music product as they fear of damaging their reputation on the receiving end.
Publicity expert Thom Siveliwa believes that formulae does not work in selling a song. He says a song sells itself whereas publicity stunts only make people talk about you as an artist for a certain period.
“Stunts are not key to popularity per say, stunts only help the artist to stay a talk of the time some may call it relevance at that particular time. On the other hand stunts doesn’t help the song to get popular it’s the song itself that sells, many have tried stunts but their songs didn’t get popular,” he said.
A music producer who opted for anonymity concurred with Siveliwa. He argued that a number of musicians try to sell their songs through stunts but it does not work at all.
He cited examples of Kumbu’s issue of nude pictures and Charisma’s toilet seat photograph, as some of the cases which failed to sell the said artists’ works which were released soon after the incidents.
However, musician Hilco believes, publicity stunts work sometimes. She stressed that musicians should just be careful with such tactics as they can be detrimental to an artist’s career.
“Sometimes they help push the song because the more people talk about the issue, the more they would want to listen to your songs, but at the same time it’s risky depending on the kind of stunt you are using. Other stunts will just confuse people, at the same time damaging reputation,” she said.
Some of the suspected publicity stunts are; Saint, Jay Jay Cee conflict over the former’s song called Delilah, and Tay Grin’s hairdo prior to release of Tola.
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