About The Music Business Academy

The Music Business Academy is South Africa's first music business school offering courses across a spectrum of disciplines within the music industry. We pride ourselves on being a group of music business experts that wish to help develop our industry and continually research and access information on it. We are a school that is continually involved in the music industry. We are not simply about academics - although that's important - but rather about making business work. We firmly believe that being an entrepreneur in this business is essential and place strong values on working with other people and, above all, working for yourself!

The school was started in 2008 by 3 enthusiastic and highly motivated people. They had identified many years ago, that music business and practical knowledge of the industry were key in having a thriving career and to uplifting the industry around them. The knowledge base on which the school is established is the best and largest in South Africa.

The school currently offers practical and essential workshops for anyone wanting to get a grip on the industry. In 2010, we wish to start offering full- and part-time courses in music business with international recognition, Department of Education backing and SETA support.

Whether you are being exposed to the music biz for the first time or you are quite the veteran, you’ll find valuable resources here that will help you with your quest for knowledge about the music industry.

This industry is a rapidly changing environment, always in a constant state of flux, and the artist or the business person must learn to change with it. As Dave Chislett noted at Moshito 2007 (the annual South African music industry conference), the music business is using a 60-year-old model for a profession that has been around for 600 years, in an industry that has changed so dramatically in the last few years that the model doesn’t work anymore. In the future, change in the music biz is likely to become even more rapid. This may seem overwhelming, but in the words of Nelson Mandela, education is the most powerful weapon with which you can change the world, and an educated person is a prepared person.

The heart of the school is therefore to educate and empower artists and others in the profession that are wanting to know how to survive what is still regarded by many as a cutthroat industry which is out to make a quick buck at the expense of the people who make art what it is.

One of the biggest challenges today, especially in a South African context but also around the world, is that artists and other industry professionals are sometimes unaware of what the music business entails, or how much it has changed since the advent of the Internet—an innovative disruption that has revolutionised the way people make and consume music.

Read the article on MBAC on the MIO website.