By Michelle Strydom
How did you and Barends come up with the idea for Finding the Hype?
I developed the idea while I was a student working on campus radio at the University of Cape Town, and I’ve been waiting for the perfect moment to launch it. Good Hope FM has an extraordinary reputation, strong working networks and a very large audience, so it is the ideal platform. Sherlin and I have recently been entrusted with the 08:00 to 11:00 Monday to Friday radio show, which has significant exposure and a very high profile, so the 90% local content policy decision, in conjunction with these factors, became the perfect moment to launch the campaign.
Is this campaign also an attempt to act in accordance with the new 90% local content SABC policy?
No, there is no need for us to generate local content. South Africa has a powerful music industry that is more than capable of providing enough quality music to fulfil the quota. However, I believe that public broadcasters have a responsibility to develop and strengthen local industries, so by giving local artists this wonderful opportunity, we are empowering new performers to contribute to the country's music scene.
What is the exact process of this campaign?
Finding the Hype is an open invitation to anyone in the country. Those who believe that they have created incredible tracks can submit the songs as attachments in mp3 form in an email and send it to
[email protected].
If we are impressed with the song, we will help the artist through the process of readying their songs for radio play, in whatever way they need, be it mixing and mastering the songs or getting them registered. Then, once a song is ready, we debut the song on the radio, interview the artist live in studio, playlist their song and distribute it to other SABC radio stations, and make their presence known to other artists in the industry. It's important to note that our producer, Shay Petersen, who is a seasoned producer and performing artist himself, is incredibly important to the campaign's workings.
How is this campaign different from similar radio campaigns?
As far as I am aware, there are no other campaigns like this on South African radio. It is different to the traditional system of music compilers playlisting at radio stations because we take an active role in the process of readying artists, because of the sheer amount of music we aggressively work through to discover talent (hundreds of songs each week), and because of the time and effort we put in to ensure that these new artists develop stronger careers after they are playlisted too.
What other projects will you and Barends be working on in the future?
We have a whole range of exciting plans that we will roll out over the next few months. We're keeping them under wraps for now though.
Finding the Hype will launch on Thursday, 2 June.