In a country like Pakistan where music has no real infrastructure to speak of and the mainstream press is focused on starry musicians mostly, its artists at large who struggle to find a space for themselves. Even as music festivals and smaller gigs continue to happen across major cities, when it comes to money, royalties and legal payouts, artists are often, if not always, taken for a ride, thanks to monopolizing record labels and lack of revenue-generating avenues.
musicalnotes
The music streaming site finishes its first quarter
and distributes royalties to artists.
In a country like Pakistan where music has no real infrastructure to speak of and the mainstream press is focused on starry musicians mostly, its artists at large who struggle to find a space for themselves. Even as music festivals and smaller gigs continue to happen across major cities, when it comes to money, royalties and legal payouts, artists are often, if not always, taken for a ride, thanks to monopolizing record labels and lack of revenue-generating avenues.
In such a hazy environment, the birth of music streaming site Patari came as a relief for many. Upon its launch several months ago, Patari CEO, Khalid Bajwa had confessed to Instep that the popular music site, endorsed by industry stalwarts like Noori as well as several prolific indie music superheroes, had been working on a format to pay the artists who are featured on the site.
And as Patari finished its first quarter (earlier this December), the music site has kept its promise to the music community and has actually paid up several artists who feature on the site.
The press release statement, released by Patari confirmed as much. “Three months after being launched as a young Pakistani startup, we are proud to announce our first ever artists’ payout: a total of Rs. One Million, Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand (Rs. 1,250,000) for the entire roster of artists currently available on the Patari platform,” said the official statement.
And yes, while the site doesn’t feature every single artist from the music community, they are trying to create a one-stop shop for music in Pakistan. And doing so in a legal manner is worth all the applause, and appreciation. And it seems that this is just the first step.
“The artist payout of PKR 1.25 million this quarter has been generated by Patari via working with various brands to create campaigns around music, and in the form of advance bookings for Patari’s audio ad platform launching soon,” explained CEO Khalid Bajwa in a press release. “Increasingly, brands are spending more and more money on digital marketing and Patari has come to fore as a unique platform that helps them create exclusive customer engagement experiences that go beyond the traditional forms of digital advertising - such as paid post boosts. In addition, our premium subscription will be launching soon - one of the features most demanded by our users. Once these mechanisms come into place, we expect the picture to get rosier for the coming quarters and our revenues to explode. We are extremely excited about offering our musicians a sustainable, consistent form of monetization to support their work in the months and years to come.”
Not surprisingly, the site, viewed with a lens of skepticism by many, is slowly turning the tide as several artists have lent support to this particularly exciting music initiative.
“I was initially skeptical about Patari. Whenever someone talks about royalties in Pakistan, a part of you laughs out loud. But they did it, they really did it. I received my royalties as promised. My congrats and best wishes to team Patari, “said Abbas Ali Khan in a statement.
Some other artists who have endorsed Patari include Noori’s Ali Noor, Nescafe Basement producer Zulfiqar Jabbar Khan, aka Xulfi, Josh’s Qurrum Hussain aka Q, Mooroo, Shamoon Ismail and Sparlay Rawail from Khumariyaan and Shajie Hassan, among many others.
With plans to roll out the feature of premium subscription in the coming days ahead, Patari is set to revitalize the music scene further. And we couldn’t be more thrilled.
