Talent has become overrated - Creative consultant says marketing strategy more important

Creative consultant and artiste manager, Cara Vickers, believes that with the careers of some entertainers currently thriving off publicity stunts, talent may very well be the least important ingredient an up-and-coming artiste needs to have a successful music career.

"After the last decade in dancehall and the Jamaican music diaspora in general, we've kinda proven that talent isn't essential. I'm not saying it isn't necessary, but these days you don't necessarily need talent, all you need is a market and mechanics. As long as you have the market, you can have a sustainable career," she said. "Social media plays a massive part in music. If you have a social media following, it means you have viewers, you have 'likers', you have listeners, so potentially it doesn't really take a lot to be successful in music. There are a lot of people out here doing music that aren't really talented but they are using their creativity to their advantage."

Vickers pointed to some artistes who many labelled them one-hit wonders.

Survivors

"Chi Ching Ching has sustained his career and has built himself up over time.

Not many people believed he would make it as far as he has. Likewise Laa Lee, who is supposedly an accidental entertainer, and there are a few others like Tanto Blacks who have the ability to entertain.

So, even though some may see them as talentless or one-hit wonders, they have been able to make use of their market and are still doing so," she said. "We have a lot of misses in this music industry and a lot of one-hit wonders, but we also have a lot of people that end up surprising the masses."

Vickers said it was important for any artiste to maximise the attention while they have it.

"There are several reasons why it could be snatched away in a minute and they have to know that and think about other ways to get the attention back on them once it has dwindled," she explained. "You have to reinvent yourself. I see Gully Bop trying to do that now , and there are a lot of people who dead and come back inna dancehall. Music is like that, one minute you're up, next your down."

But Sean 'Contractor' Edwards, of the Ocho Rios-based Contractor Music Group, believes that while proper marketing will bring an artiste to the public's attention, talent will ensure a sustainable career.

"You have artistes that are just publicity stunt artistes. But while that can get you a lot of Instagram followers, it will only get you so far in the business. You find that those artistes will come in and make a quick money but it doesn't last too long and they gave to go back to their day job," he said.

"A good marketing campaign can only bring the artiste to the public ... (but) when the artiste goes to perform, then the audience will see that they're not that talented and they don't sound like their record, and then they will just fade away and they won't get a lot of bookings."

He also said that 'gimmicks artistes' only get booked locally, and cannot charge what someone else without high talent level can.