AYOH JOGET with KRAFT & The Voize Creative Music Fund

(L-R) Kraft, Adam from PopFolio, Hardesh from PopFolio and R Records, Siva Chandran, Editor of Voize, and Premo of Voize Music Factory

Taken directly from:
http://voize.my/music/a-chance-for-budding-musicians

For budding musicians who have just discovered their calling, and have finally found the courage to submit a music piece, here’s a chance - The Voize Creative Music Fund! The initial fund of RM 10,000 will seek to identify independent bands and acts who dare to venture beyond the norm and is willing to experiment with new sounds.

“We want to co-create with independent acts. We want to encourage bands out there to dabble with different genres like electronica, acid-jazz, world music, ambient music and hip-hop to create mash-ups that will bring about a fresh sound to the Malaysian and Asian crowd.”

“Most songs from the local market tend to focus on pop and r&b and after a while this tends to be a little monotonous. Melissa Indot and The Otherside Orchestra are daring acts that have dared to transcend traditional borders and we want to assist more acts out there to be more adventurous.” said Siva Chandran, editor of Voize.

Working together with the Voize Creative Music Fund is R Records, a project founded by local sensation Reshmonu and Hardesh Singh. R Records is open to submission from any local artiste, with or without any experience in the music industry. What’s even better is one does not need to submit an entire album of songs, merely one single will do. The revenue is also shared with the artiste, and as long as R Records retains its digital distribution rights, the artiste is free to sign up with any other record label for physical distribution rights at the same time.

Voize.my caught up with Kraft, a local rising hip-hop ingenue who is also the first ever recipient of the Voize Creative Music Fund, who has used the money to produce a new single, a “Malay club banging heavy sample based song”, called ‘Ayoh Joget’. It is due for radio play and also other promotional mobile download campaigns soon.

The last time Kraft came over, he climbed our rooftop wall at Voize. Will he continue to climb anything else? “I’ll try to stay off the wall, I’m trying to climb the walls for radio charts,” he says candidly. “With Kraft, I’m more of a hip-hop enthusiast, and with Aman Dhillon, I’m more of an independent music-maker.” Does he get a lot more attention now? “I’ve always gotten attention - its only (about) what sort of attention. Something that works in my favour.”

“We are absolutely delighted to be associated with this truly young talent. After he put up an amazing performance during the VIMAs (Voice Independent Music Awards) with Melissa Indot, and walked away with two awards, we knew he was unique and had the attitude to push the boundaries of hip-hop music. He was the first recipient of the Voize Creative Music Fund, and the release of the song “Ayoh Joget” is a stomper, blending hip-hop against a background of hard-hitting beats. It could easily be turned into a dance track, and we are exploring the possibility of doing a dance remix of the song. We truly believe that ‘Ayoh Joget” is going to be a local hit for Kraft and has the potential to be marketed on the international scene.” said the Managing Editor of Voize, Siva Chandran.

Hardesh Singh, who is from PopFolio and also from R Records says: ” Joget is the first single from Voize Creative Music Fund. It’s a collaboration between all of us, including Voize and PopFolio. Now that we have a masterpiece like Ayoh Joget, we’re going to help push it out to the market. On my side, because we have R Records, which is a digital label where we partner with a major telco, and we like the song very much as we feel it has a lot of potential, we decided to sign it up. From next week onwards people can buy it from the mobile download service.” R Records has a solution to the marketing problem that most digital distribution outlets face, says Hardesh. “That’s where R Records is very unique, because we have a relationship with a telco, where the telco then provides marketing and promotion for our artistes.”

There are two paths a recipient of the Voice Creative Music Fund can take. While R Records gears more towards radio-friendly songs, the Voize Music Factory will nurture more experimental musicians - both types of which will come out of this music fund project.

By Rachel Chan Suet Kay on June 11th 2009 at 2:00pm