MIKA the better one wroteDont confuse it with racist...
I got your point totally.......ie their music comes from the gut, it is not prefabricated. Everyone takes a little from everyone else, it is how that comes out of you that makes the difference.
Which is what I took from what you said.
The other problem is........all those bands Keira mentioned. I have no clue who most of them are and the only reason I know the one's I do is because I am from there and hear about them from friends or by way of websites.
But nobody, and I mean NOBODY, in the USA knows who they are. Unless they have some sort of connection to SA or follow the SA scene somehow. They are in other words, not household names here.
You need an industry that will develop and push SA bands, put some money into them, bring in the best producers and engineers and use the best studio's......put a massive media blitz into effect using the best promo people they can etc etc, take the band to a place like Germany first in a heavy club schedule to make the bands road hard and develop the live show and expose the band to the level of bands in other countries to give them an idea of how fucking hard they need to work........AND.......sorry to say this but if the singers are going to sport heavy SA accents, sing in Afrikaans or use local slang etc....anything to make the lyrical and vocal thing a very local deal.......FAIL!
Sorry. At least in the beginning.
Americans and people in the UK are not interested in unusual accents and foreign languages........other than Spanish in the USA but that is because of the huge amount of Mexican's here. Don't get me started on that!
The way to get SA on the map is to compete on the same level as everyone else. If a singer is going to have a heavy accent, the songs, music, production and lyrics need to be the best of the best. Even then.....drop the local is lekker thing if you want to compete elsewhere.
It is up to the musicians in SA to make a difference. It begins with kicking up your determination a whole lot, your commitment to the trade and it will take a LOT of hard work. Like rehearsing a band for months at least 3X a week, quickly replacing weak members, developing a show, weeding out the weak songs, recording every rehearsal and being super critical.
The problem is that in SA it is easy to be a big fish in a little pond even with a moderate amount of ability. This does not prepare you for the level elsewhere.
