Germaine Smith, Staff ReporterPRODUCER AND songwriter Mikey Bennett is now leading the E-Logic Music Group (EMG), a multi-tasking body based at his former Grafton Music headquarters in Vineyard Town.
The entity began official
operations six months ago and is now into the fine-tuning phase. It has on its list of directors names like Courtney Walsh, Howard McIntosh and Garfield Sinclair, among others, and Bennett has assembled a powerful list of musicians and engineers to ensure quality music products.
Bennett told The Gleaner the E-Logic Music Group, , was formed in response to some of the things the music business currently needed more of.
"It's the music company of the future, where the focus will be on the artiste and not the record," he stated in a recent interview. "Our aim here is to completely develop the artistes to showcase them to the world as talented and intelligent people."
EMG, Bennett explained, will try as best as possible to create an environment where talent shines. They will do this through assessing the needs of the artistes in their care and tailoring programmes to match these needs. Among some of the
activities they coordinate at
present are stage performance classes, voice training sessions, studio recordings and business-related teaching.
The focus, he noted, will not be totally on fresh artistes, but accomplished acts that may need management or booking agents or someone to act as their representative.
"We are looking at a mix of people, whether they be brand new artistes or established
people who want a company to represent them. We can do the work for them."
PRODUCTION SERVICES
Added to these functions as well, the facility is marked to offer production services
for both local or overseas
professionals who may need it. This, Bennett said, should allow it to cash in on the treasured tourism dollar.
"It is a tourism product already, you could say, because we have set up a tour for a group from overseas in the next two weeks. We want to be in a position to provide accommodation. You should be able to take up the phone from anywhere in the world and just call to say you want to record, or you want to stay here and mix some songs, or you want to stay and produce a whole album, anything."
EMG officially has under its wings, six artistes it plans to represent in different ways. They are Sasha and Cutty Ranks as established artistes, Philip Watkis, Ricky Shepherd, Shantia and G-Blunt.
"We will be putting out records and rhythms, but it will be more of an avenue to expose our artistes," Bennett continued. "We have some innovative ways to do things that people have not tried yet and we are getting the sponsors for it. We are hoping that by year two we can make some money to put back in the business."
