Round-up/ All About Music 2024 conference

 

BY NARENDRA KUSNUR 

All About Music 2024 conference 

Details; August 6 to 8, Hotel Grand Hyatt, Santa Cruz East

Even before I left home to attend the opening day of the three-day All About Music 2024 conference on August 6, a friend posted on Facebook about the traffic. I quipped about whether he was talking of traffic on the way to the venue or within the premises. What I figured out once I reached there was that the jam was right at the entrance.

For the first time after demonetisation in 2016, I had to stand in such a long queue, just for registration. So my bucket list item of attending a panel discussion featuring A.R. Rahman, and hopefully getting a selfie with him to post on his birthday, went for a toss. The music director was part of a group that talked of 'Democratising Access To Immersive Music Creation Through Technology, Innovation and Education'. Have you ever heard such a long title for a panel discussion that could have been simply called 'Immersive Music Creation'?

There were many more such mara-thorn titles over the next couple of days. There was 'Backstage Titans - Shining The Spotlight On The People Who Build Your Favourite Music Experiences''. And 'Branded Content - How To Drive Value Through Audio On A Primarily Visual Medium Through Content'. Or how about 'Harmonising The Future - Evolving Relationships Between Music Creators And Platforms'?

There were many more, but in the interests of writing an objective and balanced report, let me also pen a few good things that made AAM worth the while. One of them was the variety of subjects chosen - right from the panel discussions and artiste showcases to the spotlights and one-on-one conversations. From genres, musical trends and challenges to different platforms, laws and technology, the palette was fairly wide. But with sessions being simultaneously held across the two ballrooms and other smaller areas, I had to obviously miss a lot.

Among those I attended, the most impressive ones were Wizcraft co-founder Sabbas Joseph's presentation on the global live events scenario, organiser Tarsame Mittal's separate conversations with Lyor Cohen, global head of music of YouTube and Google, and Vinit Thakkar, managing director of Sony Music India, and the panel discussions on Indian classical music, relationship between creators and platforms, women in the Indian music industry and the one simply titled 'Breaking Boundaries'.

Media personality Roshan Abbas moderated an interesting debate on the future of radio, with opposing views by Brian Tellis and Vineet Singh Hukmani. There were some good spotlights like Jadoo Bastar, about the collaboration between the band Daira and folk musicians from Chattisgarh, and the Nimad Project, involving a show directed by Warren de Sylva, and featuring musicians Jayesh Malani and Bharat Chandore, with folk artistes from Madhya Pradesh.

As one of the audience members pointed out in a question-answer session, most sessions were aimed at the younger crowd, and there was very little for the older generation. Speakers kept dropping the word 'I-Pop' as if they invented it five minutes ago - they probably haven't heard of a 29-year-old term called Indipop. There were quite a few segments on desi hip-hop, but they were so crowded I skipped them. I need to be rapped for that.

The man in the news was rapper HanuMankind, who did an 'In Conversation' segment with Universal Music India supremo Devraj Sanyal. HanuMankind's new song 'Big Dawgs', featuring Kalmi and released on Def Jam India, debuted at No 57 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. He's being hyped as the next superstar from India but the honest advice is to wait a couple of months and see his progress. One song and sudden fame doesn't necessarily mean long-term success. Of course, if he sustains, hats off to him.

Barring the hiccup while registering on the opening day, the conference was smoothly organised, with sessions sticking to the stimulated time. Need a sugar test after all that masala tea I had. I loved the Goan fish curry which tasted Mangalorean. Aside from the free-flowing gyan, there was an abundance of those wanting to network and build new business contacts. So the corridors resembled a fish market with an upgraded fashion sense shown by selfie-seeking folks. Smile, cheese, see you next year. Maybe there will be a session called 'The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog to see whether the avalanche of artificial intelligence has tempted smart creators to invent means of dropping original musical content in the age of sustained superficiality'.