Music Ally

Sellaband is a fan-funding website based in Holland. Since its launch in August 2006, SellaBand has coordinated recording sessions for 34 artists or acts who had their albums funded by their fans with over USD $3,000,000 invested so far. This week the company announced that it’ll be funding the next album from Public Enemy frontman Chuck D. We asked Sellaband’s UK head to talk us through how the Sellaband model has changed and what it means for artists and labels looking for a deal. (more…)

We’re chuffed this week to have had Public Enemy’s Chuck D writing the comment piece for the Music Ally Report. We enjoyed his piece so much, in fact, that we wanted to publish it here for a wider audience. So without further ado, read on!

“While this year marks the 20th anniversary of Fight The Power, I’d like to point to a lesser known commemoration from ten years back, when Public Enemy left Def Jam and entered the world of digital distribution.

About a year before, in 1998, smack dab in the middle of Public Enemy headlining the Smokin’ Grooves tour, we created www.publicenemy.com and it became one of the very first artist sites in rap and hip hop. The Terrordome became what netizens would later call a ‘blog’. My points were heard and read beyond any interview I could do, direct from the source.

For the previous years leading up to it, I wondered when there could be TV on the web, if people could eventually email songs, and how about folks becoming one with the artistry. A seamless artist-audience relationship. All I could do back then is dream, wish, write, and wait. So I waited. And wrote.

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Don’t believe the hype! Oh, except when the hype is about a fan-funded music service, and Chuck D is the man saying it. The hip-hop star has been named as ambassador for SellaBand’s expansion into the US market, and he’s pretty excited:

“SellaBand’s business model takes music to a whole new level by linking fans directly to musicians and leveraging those relationships for the creation of new music,” says Chuck D. “It’s an ‘everyone wins’ solution and is the new, new frontier and will completely redefine the way the music business operates.”

Chuck’s appointment is part of a deal with New York firm BTN Eastlink, which will run SellaBand’s day-to-day activities and co-ordinate partnerships and sponsorships, including the upcoming ArenaFest tour, on which several of SellaBand’s artists are playing.

“SellaBand is at an exciting crossroads in its growth,” says Johan Vosmeijer, SellaBand’s CEO. “By working with BTN Eastlink and Chuck D we believe their insight will help take SellaBand to the ‘next level’ and prove invaluable. An integral part of expanding into the US market is building a world class team and together, this is what we are doing.”

SellaBand’s model revolves around fans investing in bands, who aim to build up enough funds to record an album.

Extracts from the hour long panel session at MIDEM 2008 on the changing relationship between fans, artists and the music business chaired by Music Ally director Steve Mayall