THE South African Music Industry Council (Samic) in KZN is reviving the National Traditional Music Association (Natma).
Natma was established in the 1980s but had to stop operations due to unforeseen circumstances.
According to Samic KZN secretary general Romeo Qetsemane, Natma will represent all traditional music genres, including maskandi, mbaqanga, reggae, isicathamiya and gospel.
“Natma is the member of Samic, which represents traditional music organisations. Their aim is to fight for the rights of traditional music. We’re making this announcement because we don’t want artists to be confused in the future. We want everyone to be on the same page with us,” Qetsemane said.
He said they’ll be making further developments on Natma in the next week.
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“Under Natma, there will be more organisation and they’ll deal specifically with these genres. For example, next week we’ll announce an organisation that will deal specifically with maskandi music. Another organisation will deal with mbaqanga music. The same will happen with gospel, reggae music and isicathamiya,” Romeo said.
Sipho Chule, the organiser of the Isicathamiya Music Award, said he was excited about the development.
“This is good news for our genre. I say this because our music is hardly recognised and we don’t have an organisation to speak on our behalf. I fully support this initiative,” Sipho said.
Gospel artist Jumbo said he was not aware of Samic or Natma.
“Unfortunately, I don’t know this organisation, but I’d like to know more about it. Otherwise, it would be great to have someone fighting for our rights,” Jumbo said.
