Cape Town — The Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture, Gayton McKenzie said his department would help exploited artists by hiring lawyers to understand the intricacies and details of their contracts.
Earlier this week, McKenzie shed light on his plans and touched on the topic of South African artists who have struggled through the years without receiving a cent for their work. He planned to get a group of lawyers together, paid for by the Department, to help struggling artists and fight against record labels who exploit them, TimesLIVE reported.
“I looked at why our artists are poor, and I found three things: they get exploited by their record labels, the people representing artists can’t account for the money that we give them, and we also realised artists may be great artists but they may not be great businesspeople,” McKenzie said.
Many South African artists suffer from poverty and blame their struggles on being robbed by record labels. Some have struggled to pay for medical bills and expenses, while others have died poor.
According to The Citizen, McKenzie said he had noticed a pattern that several South African artists did not have money for burials or medical aid.
“It’s insulting that a person did not have bread, but you put them in a casket for R50 000. It’s not right, we should not fight for artists to be buried,” he said.
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He said he had even contributed to the funeral of Kwaito legend Sandile “Mapaputsi” Ngwenya who recently died. He said that the department to ensure that artists could live a good life to be able to bury themselves and said he was not the “Minister of funerals” or the “Minister of condolences”.
He said from now on, government would make a group of lawyers available to help artists with their contracts, free of charge.
“I called a group of lawyers of the arts and I said to them, ‘we will pay you as government’. You must look through each contract each artist is going to sign in this country.”
McLenzie said he was working with the Department of Trade and Industry to ensure that artists should be recognised as workers.
Over the years, many artists have complained to government to help artists sustain their livelihoods instead of paying for their funerals. Different sports, arts and culture ministers have been dubbed “minister of funerals” because of their attendance at the funerals of artists and sports legends.
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Compiled by Matthew Petersen
