Why Music Is a Business (Whether You Like It or Not)

The first time my father took me and my siblings swimming, I was convinced in my mind that all I needed to do was move my limbs, and my determination and will would move me across the swimming pool. I imagined that’s how all the swimmers learned to swim. I even thought swimming would be easier than riding a bike. Easy stuff, just.

It was something else entirely to realise that the fight for life was real, when I entered the shallow end, and went under. My life flashed before my eyes as I just inhaled that water and splashed around like an octopus; that is until I felt my father pull me up from under. At that point, I realized that despite what I thought I knew about swimming, there was going to have to be some ka humility about the thing, and I would have to learn by doing.

I feel it’s the same thing with a lot of things in life. Even if you went to a school that taught you everything about music, yes, you would know a bunch of useful stuff, and yet you would still have to learn by getting out there and doing the thing.

“Sole Proprietor.” “Business Owner.” “Entrepreneur.”

There’s this weird way some of us look at people who introduce themselves as “some things” when the whole room is introducing the room. “Sole proprietor.” “Business owner.” “Entrepreneur.” It’s like guys have all thought and decided in their minds that “this one probably didn’t do well enough in school to be something that matters.”That’s another story.

The thing I have learnt is that as a creative and an artist, I actually am those things. I am a business owner. A sole proprietor. An entrepreneur; because music is a business. It’s something we do because we feel called and are passionate about it, but the rights the law provides for us to earn economically make it a business.

The word “business” comes from the Old English word bisig, which meant careful, anxious, or occupied. Over time, it evolved from a state of mental worry into the modern term for trade and commerce. I have learned that this etymology is squarely apt for what most artists, including myself, are trying to do: share our words, melodies, experiences in song, and then earn from those fixations through streaming, through performance and so on. That is trade and commerce at the end for sure — even if it began as such a beautiful anxiety.

From Solfa Notes to Voice Memos

I remember when melodies came to me in the middle of lessons in high school, before the convenience of voice memos on iPhones. I had to get paper and write those solfas down, and then at the nearest opportunity, get to the music room and figure it out. The only way to remember what I wrote and composed was to practice and play it again and again. It was such a joy that whole process gave me. I was restless until I felt that catharsis. I knew I would be making music for the rest of my life.

Now, I do the same thing in a world where voice memos exist, thank God, and hope that an album brings in money. But wanting an album to “bring in money” and actually structuring your work so that it can, are two very different things. That gap, between the creative catharsis and the commercial return, is exactly where most artists get lost.

The Baker Who Can’t Do Sums

If your badde came through and told you they were going to sell bread, even if they knew how to bake the best bread in the whole world, and they did not have accounting and math skills to figure out that busines, it would be surviving on vibes alone. Where is the profit? How is loss ascertained? What is the cost of making the bread?

Why is it that when we have it in our minds to “make it big” in making music, our brains and understanding completely remove the understanding of basic business? We want beats, and then we conveniently forget we need to pay the producer. We sing at performances, and we are just so happy to be involved — we don’t take the success of our music business seriously to be smart enought to prepare for the eventuality of human nature.

In the end, we must learn, like I learnt to swim.

We enter the pool, and just here in the shallow end, we are completely engulfed. We wonder if we were wrong about the calling to make music. We imagine, like I did, that determination and will and moving limbs shall somehow get us to the other side of the pool.

When There’s No One There to Pull You Up

Sometimes that hand, that person that pulls you to the surface, isn’t there.

You used your last ka amount of money to take a taxi to the venue, expecting that after the performance, once you get your payment, you shall have enough to take a boda. Then the people that called you and asked you to perform, who put you on the poster, are saying things like, “We shall sort you during the after-party.” As the party goes on and on, and the excuses are made again and again as you reach out, you start realizing that you must walk from Serena to Bwaise at 2 in the morning.

If your baking badde told you he was giving out free bread to his customers, sure that “eventually” they would give him the money — what would go through your mind regarding the wisdom of such a decision? If you were truly their friend, I imagine you would point out the folly.

If you are making music and expect to earn money from it, it is a business. Treat it as such.

Period.

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So What Does “Treating It As a Business” Actually Look Like?

The principle is simple to say and hard to live. Passion doesn’t cancel out the need for structure. Here’s what that means in practice, for anyone trying to swim rather than sink in the shallow end:

• Know your numbers before you know your fame. Cost of production, cost of features, cost of promotion, expected return per stream or per show. If you can’t answer “what did this song cost me and what has it earned me,” you’re baking bread on vibes.
• Get paid like a professional, not like a favour. “We shall sort you during the after-party” is not a contract. Agree terms, ideally in writing, before you step on stage — deposit, balance, timeline, who pays if the show is cancelled.
• Separate the craft from the commerce, but don’t let them ignore each other. The solfa-writing, restless-until-it’s-out part of you is the artist. The part that asks “who owns this, who gets paid, and how” is the businessperson. Both have to be in the room.
• Understand your rights before you give them away. The law gives creators the economic rights that turn a song into an income stream — through streaming, licensing, performance. If you don’t know what those rights are, you can’t negotiate them, protect them, or collect on them.
• Budget for the walk home. Literally and figuratively, don’t spend your last coin assuming the payment will land on time. Build a buffer, because “eventually” is not a payment date.
• Let humility do what it did in the pool. The swimming lesson wasn’t “give up on swimming”. It was “accept that will alone won’t keep you afloat, so learn the actual mechanics.” Same with music. Passion gets you in the water; structure keeps you from going under.

Music will always start as a beautiful anxiety, that restlessness until the song is finally out of you. But once it’s out, it enters the world of trade and commerce, whether you planned for that or not. The only choice you actually have is whether you meet that world prepared, or whether you meet it treading water.