Behind the Iban music industry

So much have been written on the Iban music industry by Jadit in his weekly Dayak Music column in the Sunday edition of the Borneo Post. The writer have been following the industry and have been a good promoter to the industry with his review and comments on the latest album.

And recently, I have the chance to look into how the album and songs are being promoted through one of our local radio stations. According to Cats Radio in a recent press interview, the station have been receiving good support from the Iban community and hence the longer airtime allocated for the Iban segment. The segment is also filled with ads from the various music production house.

Back in Miri, I was equally surprised to see how this music production house promotes their album and singers. The DJ Sampler was not better than the one sold by pirates.

The photos below show how our local production house promote their albums and singers. And, they expect the deejays to play their songs often. No doubt the deejays are paid by their respective employers, but they do not deserve this burnt copies of the original samplers or cds. Not only it is seen to promote piracy, but maybe the production house are the pirates themselves!

How can the players survive in this competitive market when quality is an issue!

Among all the samplers, this one from Grand (where they have one song in Iban - Rahsia Disebalik Hati or Bungai Ati) was presented in a more professional manner. A proper album cover and disc.

And, you can hardly find the CD version of the Iban albums. Most are produced as VCD karaoke and the radio stations have to convert it manually to audio only version.

Kati ka maju? Oohh.. there is no urgent need to touch on royalty or MACP.. because they (the singers and groups) are not even a member yet except for Nai Dinamik!