Meet Defao Bute: A music promoter

Defao in his Limbe office: Picture by Watipaso

Music promoters play a crucial role in the success of artists. Yet, usually this crop of people has often been accused of ripping off musicians; reaping where they did not sow. Our reporter, Watipaso Mzungu Jnr, caught up with Defao Bute to shed more light on this and other issues. Excerpts:

Can you tell me what your name is?

My name is Defao Bute. I was born in 1973 at Ngabu in Chikhwawa. Basically, I am a music promoter, marketer and seller here at Limbe in Blantyre.

So how can you define a music promoter?

A music promoter is someone who stands between an artist and a other sections of people that matter in the music industry. These could be producers, radio DJs and the consumer (buyer). In summary, I can say a promoter is a link between an artist and the stakeholders. As a promoter, you may also be required to play an advisory role to the artist and vendors (people who sell music on the markets) for the success of the album.

Since you started this business, how many musicians have you promoted, so far?

There are so many; I can’t remember. However, I can only mention a few who have managed to do well on the market. I promoted Thomas Chibade’s Dzina langa, three albums of Katelele Ching’oma and Joseph Nkasa’s Ndakulakwira Chani?

Besides, I have also released five collection albums—Defao Collections whose quality people have appreciated so much on the market.

You have reminded me something. How do musicians you feature in your collections benefit from such albums?

The normal procedure is that different musicians compose songs and sell them to anyone interested in releasing a collection. The price of each depends on how good the song is. The highest I have paid to a musician for a song is K30,000.

You promoters have sometimes been have accused you of ripping artists leaving them desperate and poor.

I am aware of those allegations being levelled against us. It’s very unfortunate that many artists don’t want to understand when the Copyright Society of Malawi (Cosoma) says about how a promoter and an artist can share the proceeds. The Cosoma Act states clearly that a promoter shall and the artist shall share equally (each one of them gets 50 percent of the proceeds fromt the sale of the album).

However, I can understand why some artists choose to disregard this requirement and go about falsely accusing us of reaping where we didn’t sow. One thing you need to know is that most of our musicians are jobless and thus music has become their only source of living.

Hence they become desperate to make big money within a short period—they are lacking patience.

But I must clarify here that this attitude by musicians towards promoters is not synonymous with all musicians. I know of many artists also who are aware of what the promoter is supposed to get such that issues of disagreements and misunderstandings between an artist and the promoter does not exist.

Could you state some of the main challenges anyone interested to be a music promoter is likely to face?

Piracy is the major challenge in this industry. I feel Cosoma lacks the human resource to monitor our trading centres where much of this vice is taking place. I wish the society had enough workforce so that they could be moving around our markets and see for themselves how heartless people are exploiting other people’s art for their sake.

What could be your final word?



Defao busy serving customer: Pic by Watipaso Mzungu Jnr



Well, I would like to thank the media in Malawi for being helpful, especially when it comes to promotion of our music. I also would like to thank music lovers who seem to be appreciating local music at the moment. As you are aware, most Malawians used to like foreign music, but gradually, this trend seems to be changing. More and more people are buying local music today. This spirit should continue if our talent is to be nurtured.

END