Since I’ve taken over admin duties at Dutty Artz in January I’ve learned a lot about selling music in 2013, stuff that I wish I would have known when I decided to venture into this world as an artist. A Europe-based musician friend asked for advice about getting music press coverage in the U.S. yesterday, and I responded with the following email, which I thought would be useful to share with the world…

… it seems like the trendy U.S. magazines have been lukewarm towards us lately, to say the least (Fader never seems to answer my emails anymore. Pitchfork never has.) But the only one who’s been responsive (even while writing derisive things about our scene) is XLR8R. But my warning would be not to focus too much on any of them – they all seem to be going through some kind of crisis in the quest for hits (crack era #2)… and like Jace said, Andy’s mix made it on to 4 or 5 blogs (Iggy, XLR8R, Mad Decent, Man Recordings) and racked up 50,000 plays in a week. I think the reason for all this is people are steady on their facebook, twitter, tumblrs – concentrating on churning out their own media content all day to not even really pay attention to these blogs that constantly turn out material. The other thing is (and to be totally blunt), our biggest successes recently have been projects that play to identity politics and that are marketed towards immigrant communities, who manage to trickle their tastes back home. Andy’s mix succeeded because he’s speaking to middle class Latinos (even being a white canadian) who are thirsting for content that represents their cosmopolitan experiences – a big proportion of his hits came from South America, and I’ve mostly been successful doing the same for middle class Africans both at home and abroad. As trendy (white) magazines turn away from socially conscious, global, edgy music and towards celebrity, party, molly infused, hood/bro music, NY’s immigrant and queer communities are trying to claim their own – and are creating their own spaces and surrounding culture doing so (Que Bajo, Ghe20 G0th1k, Africa is a Country, etc).

Really though, it seems a lot of the immigrant-focused underground activity is still concentrated in NY. There is a different thing happening regionally in black communities around the U.S. in places like Chicago, The Bay Area, LA, New Orleans as always, as every city in the U.S. goes through their own form of gentrification. And all that activity remains exciting, but in some ways it remains insulated from the idea of global. After flirting with the global for so many years, the white magazines seem to be turning towards these domestic regional genres as their main founts of source material. Maybe its because we collectively went in so hard on Diplo and folks are afraid to get a backlash? Or maybe austerity – as Jace has been positing lately – is causing people to have an anxiety about the global and/or get protectionist for their national output. All I know is that with the trendsters, Juke, Techno, Vogue, Club, Hyphy, Trap, Bounce are all the rage (still no D.C. Gogo tho), and Kuduro, Coupe Decale, Reggaeton, Baile Funk are out. I don’t know if that helps you think of places to pitch your music, but maybe it will give you a sense of what we’re dealing with over here.

There’s one caveat to this whole thing via some sage advice from a friend… The bit about gentrification and Black communities in the U.S. touches on something I’ve been quietly whispering about for awhile, and a little shy to admit. A lot of immigrant communities in the U.S. these days are the gentrifiers (for various reasons) – and this can be extended to pro-immigrant activists (such as myself) living within these areas. The continued economic and social marginalization of Black American communities across the country happens at a time where that communities cultural output, and physical neighborhoods are the most lucrative for corporate and mainstream America. I don’t think that being pro-immigrant in New York means that one is anti-nativeBlack. But I do think that this conundrum means that there’s a serious need of cross-community solidarity between recent arrivals and long-time residents in America’s contemporary inner cities.

Would love to hear your thoughts.