Fokofpolisiekar on digital fandango
Adriaan Roets
Infamously popular for their profane lyrics and equally loathed for their jarring name, Fokofpolisiekar is riding an unexpected wave of success that shows the future of music in South Africa will rely on shrewd online campaigns to drive album sales.
Last month the band announced a campaign to fundraise for a new album via Thundafund. The band asked fans to crowdfund for them. Initially the band set out to raise R500 000 by offering fans a number of exclusive deals through Thundafund. For R80 you could pre-order the new album, while for R100 000 the band offered a private show. Other deals included signed merchandise, watches and signed guitars. Some items quickly sold out, with signed posters and guitars fetching prices of up to R25 000.
Once the campaign kicked off the band received pledges of R180 000 within 48 hours. Thundafund (the leading SA crowdfunding platform) has hosted about 200 campaigns and helped to raise almost R11 million to date. Of all these campaigns, Fokofpolisiekar raised the most money in the first 48 hours and broke the record for the most money ever raised – impressive for a band that hasn’t released a new album in 11 years.
But there is one giant problem – by yesterday less than 500 units of the upcoming album were sold, accounting for only R61 580 of the funds raised. For a band like Fokofpolisiekar, which is considered a lyrical force, album sales are more important than selling items for the sake of popularity.
Wynand Myburgh said: “It is crazy that album sales make up such a small portion of the money that we have raised. But don’t get me wrong, we did not expect it to be any different. It just confirms the state of the industry and that we have gone the correct route. Imagine if we spent R500 000 on this project and had to recoup that via album sales. We would have been screwed.”
The band is now rerouting their campaigns to entice listeners to preorder their album during the next 46 days of Thundafund fundraising. Yesterday the band said they would love to reach gold status with the presales of 15 000 units from their Thundafund page. In their 14-year career they have never had a gold record and in South Africa not that many artists achieve this, especially on the day first day of release.
They encouraged everyone to back them by pre-ordering either the digital MP3 album for only R80, the physical CD for only R100 or the vinyl (a limited number is available) at R350.
Fokofpolisiekar also pledged to their fans that if they reach R700 000, they will give a free show in Cape Town (on a first-come firstserve basis) and if they reach R800 000 they will also perform a free show in Gauteng.