Streaming services help Pakistani musicians find voice but record labels could provide security 

RAWALPINDI: The entry of indigenous and international streaming apps into the Pakistani market has helped boost the country’s independent music scene, artists say, but the lack of an organized industry means they often don’t have the budgets to take their music to the masses.
In other countries, record companies sign contracts with artists, manage their brand identity, keep them financially comfortable and determine their studio time.
But there are almost no fully functional record labels in Pakistan.
“Here we have artists who are fending for themselves,” said producer Abdullah Siddiqui, who last week released “Hot Mango Chutney Sauce” by one of the country’s most recognizable music stars, Meesha Shafi.
“We don’t have this binary of independent versus non-independent music in Pakistan since we don’t have record labels,” he said. “What that means is that all Pakistani artists are essentially independent.”

The gap was not filled when Coke Studio was launched in in 2008, the country’s longest-running annual television music show featuring live studio-recorded music performances by established and emerging artists. Other food and beverage companies followed suit with shows like Nescafe Basement and Cornetto Studio. But most artists could not find space on these platforms.
“When I started releasing music three years ago, mainstream music was associated with brands or commercial stuff, that only catered to a specific number of musicians who they used again and again,” Lahore-based rapper Maanu told Arab News. “We didn’t really have an option but to go independent.”

To find and reach their audiences, many musicians like Hasan Raheem, The All Girls Band, Talal Qureshi, and Faris Shafi, relied on social media and streaming platforms. There are more than 70 million Internet users in Pakistan.
“I started releasing music on my own and focused on building my music career through my own YouTube channel,” Maanu said. “It used to be a necessity but now at this point it carries its own power.”
“For someone like me, who’s a hip-hop artist and doesn’t feel the need to hold back or censor themselves, independence means freedom,” he added. “I get to tell my story the way that I want to tell it.”
Islamabad-based singer Zoha Zuberi agreed.
“It allows you creative freedom and most importantly it channels your emotions in the most organic manner without guidelines and conditions,” said Zuberi, whose song “Jo Tu Na Mera” was released last month and has crossed over 100,000 views on YouTube. “It’s a good thing that technology has come this far ... impacted the music industry in a huge way, making it easy for us to create and share our own music.”

Arhum Sameed, who recently released “Jo Tu Chahay” with Karachi-based rapper Hassan Bin Shaheen, said the ease of releasing, distributing, and licensing music through online services and tools has helped boost the country’s music industry for the past few years, as tracking one’s audience and choosing a marketing strategy “really does not have to involve a record label anymore.”

Yet, with no labels to back them, artists said they were always worried about how to fund their work.
“When you’re talking about music, making music, you’re talking about booking studio sessions and booking a photographer to take your cover art and producing an entire music video, and then reaching an audience,” Siddiqui said. “These are all very expensive endeavors, and without a label you’re forced to produce them out of your own pocket.”
Natasha Noorani, who co-founded the Lahore Music Meet (LMM) festival to promote independent Pakistani artists, said she launched the platform six years ago “to connect amazing musicians with active listening, audiences who were there to find music, to find their new favorite band.”
But Noorani too believes labels could help artists flourish by allowing them to focus on producing music without worrying about how to make ends meet.
“Having a label enables artists to focus on what they’re meant to focus on, which is the actual creation of art, and I think that’s the most essential thing,” she said. “It’s not feasible.”