IT’S TIME TO COLLABORATE, MATE

You should heed the words of Vanilla Ice. It’s time to stop, collaborate and listen.

Check this out. Ice was a suburban white boy who collaborated with an established black artist, DJ Earthquake. That pair then ‘collaborated’ a key riff from a hit ’80s collaboration between Bowie and Queen, into their own hit. They also ‘collaborated’ black hip hop and white washed it. And made millions doing it.

Yes, yes, I’m misappropriating collaboration there like Ice vanilla-ising (icing?) the chocolate cake of hip hop, but you get the idea. Repurposing works, honing outside influences, buddying up, it’s all part of the hit-making process.

THE HUB OF A SONG

Five years, 52 camps, over 100 songs released globally and $1.4m earned in performance royalties. Those are the numbers Milly Petriella, APRA AMCOS’s Director of Member Relations, lays out to describe the success of her baby — APRA AMCOS’s SongHubs.

It’s not everything though, she points out. Firstly, that’s only the money APRA AMCOS can track, there have been sales and syncs to major ad campaigns that the collection agency doesn’t have figures on; but it’s a healthy chunk regardless.

The other reason is that the goal of SongHubs goes way further than figures on a Spotify statement, it’s about propelling Australian and New Zealand artists’, producers’ and songwriters’ careers. “It goes far beyond the tracks written in those few days,”