I conducted this interview in January 2019 as part of my dissertation in Ethnomusicology at the School of African Studies (SOAS).
The Dissertation was entitled:
Appropriate Appropriation?
An exploration of issues surrounding
‘Crate Digging’ and the ‘One-man’ Music Label Phenomena
Habibi Funk: Jannis Stürtz - Label Founder / Manager
19th of January, Hotel Old Street. Sophie Symmons (Darling)
Sophie Symmons (SD): Basics first, when did you star to collect music, and understand you probably enjoy music more than most people...
Jannis Stürtz: I don’t even know whether that’s true, when I was 15 I did a mandatory internship in Germany in my tenth grade. I did this in a record shop called GrooveTech and they kept me on for helping out once a week for the next three years, whilst I was still going to school . And everyone in this shop was a DJ, producer, run a record label, so I guess thats kind of brought me into that scene.
Shortly after graduating I started Jakarta Records with friends, thats still like the bigger label that I do in comparison to Habibi funk - artist who used to be on Jakarta Records, he played a show in Morocco maybe 5/6 years ago...
And it went and stayed. Little extra, and found a copy of the Fadou record in a record shop and they was kind of the starting point, and um around the time I went also to Tunisia found some records there.
The basically put the first mix together of Arabic music - and kind of realised there’s A) a lot of interest in it, and B) there’s a big disparity between the quality fo the music on the one hand, and it’s availability on the other. And the idea of trying to bridge between that disparity became quite natural.
SD: Can you elaborate
JS: basically I feel that there’s a lot of people that are really into this music, but unless you go to a record shop and get lucky in morocco, you wouldn’t be able to access it. Most of it was not on youtube yet, most of the records that I like, if you googled them be it in Arabic or latin letters you wouldn’t find anything. I guess I’m sure there are other people who get to that point, without the idea of starting a record label, bt I guess in my case, it was different because I was already running a record label so it was not such big step, and then yeah we came over and thought it be nice to start a label dedicated to it. That was I think maybe 3 years ago we released the first record. ƒ
SD: So it basically came out because you were in Morocco and you found the record, you thought it was sick, and people would want to hear it, and then you made the mix, and people said YES, we do like this.
JS: yeah and then there was between this and this record coming out was quite a time because Fadou the guy behind the record like we searched quite long for him, went to Morocco a couple of times, in the beginning still thinking that he might still be alive, but then we found another band who knew him from then, and they told us that actually had died already in the early 90’s. Then they remembered a mutual friend, we got in touch with the mutual friend, remembered where his family used to live like 15 years ago, so we went back to this particular neighbourhood in Casablanca and just started asking around for the family. But they have moved as well, but we found someone who knew where the brother lived. We went and met his family and made a deal with them to re-release his music.
SD: So how does that conversation go? When you approach the family?
JS: For us it’s an essential because of two aspect:
On the one hand its about getting permission and making a deal that allows us to re-release the music, and on the one hand it’s always important for us to contextualise what were doing so all the realises will always have booklets, interviews, written down the stories of the artists. And for both we need to be in touch with the artist or in deceased cases the artists families.
But yeah in general there’s always a lot of appreciation. We have never been turned down with the idea of releasing something.
I think in the Arab wold - I more frequently hear from people working in West Africa that they meet artists hat are not that open who are, who have had bad experiences, and I think in the Arab world you don’t really find that too much, but ices that might be linked to the fact that they have the whole idea of rereleasing music in that region. In west Africa there’s been 15 years or 20 years of people doing it, and therefore also a fair share of people doing it in not a good way, so I think the source of frustration there it might be linked to the fat it has been happening for a longer time, and in that period some people have not been fairly compensated and so forth.
I have never had that, everyone always expressed very good faith and motivation and despite the fact that for me having a fair financial compensation I crucial, money had rarely been the motivating aspect to committing to re-release this music from the artists.
But this is always the point where I personally always see how easy these when you hear these stories of labels having a questionable policy when it comes to listening, I can see how that very easily happens if you’re morally flexible. I would say out of the 20 deals we have signed so far for Habibi Funk, I could have easily signed 17 of them fir next to nothing. Because A) the artist were obviously very inexperiences, and B) even somewhere like, I don’t even care about the money aspect, yeah, happens very often. I can see how if you’re morally a bit more flexible, it’s very easy to rip off artists from this generation from this part of the world - but then again I think that’s a global thing also, there are enough artists in UK or Germany that would sign a shitty deal, based on inexperience and not wanting to get into the law and business aspect of releasing music too much.
SD: So what is it that does keep your moral compass - fair? And also you said you feel that with each release, you must release a booklet with information. Why do you think that’s important?
JS: I mean fair is obviously also a very subjective term, so I guess there’s also people who could challenge whatever I consider fair, but having said that, I guess it’s just, I mean if you’re a European label dealing with non-europeans artist it automatically puts it in a historic continuity of colonial times, of pittance, of exploitations about stereotypical narratives, and I guess it’s kind of your responsibility to be aware of that and do your best to meet the requirements that are birthed out of this situation and be open to criticism and suggestions on how to change certain things.
I always tell this story as a little example but a very practical one - in the digit community it’s very common to say I discovered this record - when you mean that you have discovered a record that maybe you haven’t has not that you can’t find any infos on the internet blah blah blah. An then I went out there and I adapted this wording as well, but then at some point, a friend of mine from Sweden pointed out that if I used the word discover in this context, it has a certain analogy to the way Christoph Columbus discovered America, because people in Morocco might still be very aware of this exists this record, and discover - being formulated by a white man about non- western cultural goods, is historical troublesome statements - and I though yeah that makes sense, so I stopped using that word.
So and I think it’s important to be, because even if you have good intentions that does not mean you can’t fuck up, and i’m sure here and there we do things we could do better or differently, and its important to have an open ear for that - that doesn’t mean that you have to agree with everything.
Sometimes when I get into these cultural appropriation discussions and so forth, sometimes I can also jut agree to disagree with people, but I think it’s at East important to hear out certain arguments and conversations.
SD: If I may, what are some of these conversations you might here, or criticisms you receive ? - How do you respond?
JS: I would say two thirds of people the formulate critical statements publicly towards what we are doing, don’t really know what we are doing, I’v heard people criticise us, that person was also thought I do remixes of our songs, which is something I’ve never done. And that again is a very general statements, but I think people on the internet are sometimes very quick to formulate criticism without doing too much background information work. And funny enough, I usually get this criticism from fellow white europeans, I rarely hear anything for Arab people. But yeah I guess there are certain people who see an issue or don’t think it’s should be, the job that I do should be done by me, given that I am a white privilege man if your criticisms is not about how we do it, and maybe fixing certain things within that process, then contrary to that is about just the fact that we do it, I can acknowledge that someone else has this opinion but there is not much basis for discussion, because their critique is off fundamental nature, and there is nothing that I can do to meet someone like this in the middle ground, because there is no middle ground.
But that’s find, I also don’t I can accept that, and I can agree to disagree with people. But yeah no I don’t have this discussion that much.
SD: I guess, it’s like, the structure of how business works, and there’s a space int he market, it can be filled by whomever really - and they also retort to this criticism of - well shouldn’t someone from Africa be doing this?
JS: my issue with it is that its an argumentation of the point that comes with the luxury - it’s a very privileged position from the people themselves because it’s means they would rather not have it happen, than it getting done by me, so they would rather not have certain musicians getting paid and certain artist getting recognition whilst they’re still alive for the cultural goods that they have created, rather than me doing it. And I would understand this criticism much much more if there would have been a label in Tunis or Kairo that would do that same thing, and I would just be more successful in doing it because I live in Germany and have access to a different network. But that was not the case when I started doing this, there, to my knowledge, and I guess I would know, there was no entity doing something like this within the region. And like I said, I feel this line of critique, has much more relevance to me and power if it’s actually the case that you’re taking away a job from someone in the region. So let’s say they are nice guys - but there’s a Dutch band that play electro Shabby music - the ghetto club music of Egypt - and they are Dutch, and they for example sent em a demo at some point, and a my main point is that we don’t release contemporary music but nd I think I actually wrote it to them, it’s also like yeah, I appreciate what
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you’re doing, but if I wanted to sign an electro-shabby act, I would sign an Egyptian electro- shabby act not a dutch people doing electro-shabby music.
So yeah like I said I would see this critique as taking away something from the creatives in the arab world much more - if what I did would have been in direct competition in the region.
SD: So in a sense, that would be where you draw the line?
JS: I don’t even know whether I draw the line there. It’s the moment where I feel the critique is more legitimate.
SD: What do you think is the reason there isn’t a competitor in the business in the region? Is it market maybe or audience.
JS: No I think it is much much harder, there is no music industry there anymore, not - not anymore, but it’s physical goods have been - there’s a weaker protection of intellectual property in the region so once it became easier and easier technically to copy music easily, it because harder and harder for labels to stills ell in relevant amounts, and now in places like Beirut you little records shops opening and things, but thats yeah there is not that culture for buying physical music - at leas tin the last ten 15 years, therefore it’s much harder too sell.
And also digitally they are still a bit behind, such as in the middle east, there’s a big equivalent tot Spotify that is doing really well - but like for example int he Maghreb region most of the people who have until recently had music streaming platform access had to use a VPI client and everything. So I think trying to start a record label is economically much more challenging - there is no vinyl manufacturer for example, so if you wanted vinyl you would need to produce the records in german, that means you would need to re-import them into Morocco, you would need customs clearance, so it’s infrastructural, organisationally it’s just very very complicated. And maybe there were people having a similar idea, but to the limitations they have let’s say, being in Algeria, it’s just this idea of, I’m going to re-release some music that I really like, is jsyt much harder to put into a reality, and there is a couple of, especially in the Gulf state and in Lebanon there is re-issues, let say there is Umm Kulthumn re-issues, but when you se the artwork you can see they are catering to rich audiences, for example the people in the Gulf states. Rich collectors. And then the only labels from the region that I know do re-issues of music from the Arab world is from Israel, which is a bit complicated. So yeah. But there is Fortuna Records.
SD: Do you think that labels that are re-issuing older music are playing any kind of role in the preservation of this kind of music?
JS: Yes, I guess.
But I also tend to yeah.... I guess....we do...but
I also tend to shy away from making it sound to big or too important. For example our ‘Karma Killer’ re-issue is based upon... and I also don’t use this hype word of ‘lost’ music, because if it was lost I couldn’t re-issue it, I’m not magician I can not make things reappear from being lost. But it’s very common and popular hype word for speaking about re-issue, but let’s for example the basis for the Karma Killer re-issue we did, it was recorded for Sudanese radio and it was never released on cassette or vinyl, so the basis of it was two studio reals, that he had in his possession, and maybe there was a copy of it somewhere in the archive of the radio, maybe there isn’t, but we are speaking about music that only been physically preserved on maybe one or two reels, so Kamal - he doesn’t really know himself how old he is, but he is very old, and if god forbid he passes at some point, Im not entirely sure whether this is something his family would have kept, so yes, there is music that endangered to be lost if it doesn’t get re-issued.
But yeah at the same time, we are a music label, we are not a museum, but it has certain aspects of it sure.
SD: Out of interest, who do you think your target audience is? Who’s actually buying the records.
JS: Buying, it’s mostly people in North America, Europe and Japan - yeah Japan is always big for any type of music, but that is terms fo sales.
In terms of following and people listening, we have a pretty high following of people from the Arab world, or Arab people from the European diaspora which is, I don’t know why but it’s fairly unique, I don’t know any other re-issue label out that the majority of re-issues labels predominantly do it for a western audience, and average Nigerian boogy release does not really resonate in Nigeria, it resonate in London or Paris.
For whatever reason we imaged to resonate much more in the region where the music is coming from, which is very great and one for the more crucial points of what we are doing. Because it’s always cool if our friends get to listen to a record from Algeria they didn’t know, but it’s even more meaningful if a new generation of Algerian people connect with their own musical heritage. We managed to facilitate that within our limited veer special interest niche. But again there are no real shops that would carry our vinyls, digital streaming has just started so when it comes to selling our main audience is in Europe and it will be similar to all the other re-issue labels.
But when it comes to tour social media following, when it comes to people listening on Soundcloud and Youtube it is much for diverse.
It will change when they have streaming for longer.
SD: There is fact that a lot of people wouldn’t have eever heard any music similar to this if it wasn’t for these labels: Is this where disparity comes in, appreciation over appropriation - misunderstanding where that lies.
JS: Yes sure! That’s also down the fact that it’s a really thin line.
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JS: another aspect further than the economic factors we spoke about, other than the cultural appropriation v’s appreciation for example also is like, the economic exchange behind it is obviously a very crucial one, but I think it’s also about the way you communicate the music, the way you visually represent the music. We would never ut out a record that has camels or belly dancers on the cover, because it’s deeply colonial so we visually moving away from these stereotypes. And it ink this is equally important tot he economic aspect of it, when you change the way - you not only change how you create business transactions between the north and the south, but also about how you talk about =, optically or culturally, be aware that there is a historic pattern for this which is deeply deeply influences by colonial times.
SD: The record digging side of life: What sort of research goes into a record digging trip? How does it start?
JS: honestly I use to do it more 3/4 years ago, but it was also much easier 3/4 years ago. I mean that’s one of the changes that - I keep on meeting people when I’m travelling in the region or I’m going there for DJ gigs, and you get ‘oh I listen to your mixes and I got into looking for these records’ themselves. Like this for example there is this Palestinian girl living in Tunis, and 1 and a half years ago when I played there - a year ago - she came to me and told me that Sudo-mixes she got into looking into too for records herself and we talked about this very hard to find Tunisian jazz record that took my like 3 years to find, and she says “yes I have 6 copies of that” and then she goes into her phone and she has like Medina Guy 1 -10 in there, so all the guys who have antiques and stuff in the Medina have her number in there, and they text her when they get new records. So doing what I do, I kind fo fucked my own digging game up, because obviously someone actually living in the same city or country has a much better access to finding records than I do.
SD: I’d never really thought about this before, but do you think that record digging is something that will eventually run out?
JS: Sure. I mean no, it doesn’t run out, but the way you find the record changes. Let’s say in Germany there’s like - we have Kroutrock so there’s these bands like Cans and stuff like that - these are the kinds of records that for example you will hardly find in a flee market, there was a time like couple of years ago - I used to go to flee markets super ealy, but I never found a relevant Kraftwerk records - but that does not mean they are gone, it means they are sat in collections the value them for their value they have these days, and these randoms collections from some old rockers who tossed their collecting in the flee market. And this is something that I think happens all over, so you will still find them for example on Ebay or something from a private collector.
But then again its also chain what keeps the hole process going is that taste changes very dramatically.
No-one cared for al these Nigerian Ghanaian boogy records 5-10 years ago, everyone was just about afro-funk, afro-beat and these like - Steve Monite record was cheap, no one is interested in it, but now it’s like a 500 dollar records, and the same with all the african 80’s soucous and zouk that was all not popular 5-10 years ago, and that always trigures a whole sort of new a whole new search, because sometimes these records are there still there.
I think in general it becomes easier to din the reocrd, because once it’s popular - it might become harder to find it fora euro at a flee market, but if you really want it, you find it on the internet, you just have to pay for it, so yeah it does not in generally get harder to find a specific record, but it get’s more expensive.
SD: What is your process of digging? - I guess you find tons of records that are good - what’s the process of selection for release?
JS: The particular sound we enter, even though the name funk is in the name, but it’s not limited to that, so basically what we are interested in is basically the type of music is bands and producers that fuse local influences with sounds and influences coming from outside and that may very well be funk soul jazz disco, but in the case of the sudanese bands there’s often a very strong Ethiopian influence, there’s often a very strong Congolese influences through musicians travelling in the car of Ethiopia through the bordering region, or we - on the compilation there was a track by a Nigerian artist doing a cover of ‘Qualadera’ music which is the music from ‘Qalaoop’ - so this type of exchange that creates something that is then new and fairly unique is normally the type of thing we are interested in. This is the kind fo sound we are looking for. And I think this is important o understand that what we are doing is focusing on just one in particular very specific niche of Arabic music - I don’t know anything about Arabic music that’s a popular misunderstanding, I only know a little about very specialist interest niche, but you might ask me for some big Lebanese artists that has sold millions and iv never heard of him or her.
SD: That brings me into - who are the people behind the labels. So how is it you came to be in the knowledge of a niece style fo music
JS: Mixture of internet, meeting artists, meeting other people who are into music - don’t think there really a blueprint for the type of music I interested in, you can’t find a book on it. Let’s say if I’m into Blue note jazz – then obviously I purchase five books on blue note, then I know a lot about Bluenote - it’s no that easy for the particular things I’m interested in – I usually start somewhere, then I come across something that I like, like for example my current interests is late 80’s early 90’s Libyan reggae music – and then I just yeah, google try to find artists, try to find people who were apart of the scene
SD: So it is fulled by your own interest
JS: Yeah – and then I will travel to the region – in the case of Libya that’s sadly not currently possible but yeah
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SD: Financially – how do you start a label – savings, investments? – When you have an expense how do you overcome that?
JS: Investments – I think no person who wants to invest money who is in economic interest would put their money into a indie label. Organisationally Habibi funk is under the same umbrella and the same company as Jakarta records. Jakarta Records for many years was a hobby and a deficitary hobby, but it’s been 14/15 years since we started, and then there was this breaking part with artists who became really big afterwards, and we usually still have one of their titles in our back catalogue doing well with streaming.
So when I started Habibi Funk, financing like pressings, and financing trips was never an issue because Jakarta – we’re not getting rich by it, but we’re doing kind of good, so therefore in our case the economic aspect of running a label was always linked to growing organically. Starting it as a money, not taking any money out, and gradually growing growing and growing – most of it whilst still being a student.
I studied political science at and yeah it allowed us to grow without being economically depends without creating revenue from it.
SD: I guess the question is does it require money to start?
JS: Depends on how you are doing it, I mean yeah if you want to do it properly, if you want to release on vinyl if you want people helping you with PR, then I guess you will end up spending 10,15 thousand of investment costs for a release and paying some advancements for artist too.
But I guess you can also start smaller and don’t having pr and just doing a digital release, I’v in general, I,
SD: Is that how Jakarta started /With digital online
JS: No no it was always vinyl but yeah like I said it was, fir the first seven years we didn’t really take money from out of the label it was a hobby, so, yeah if you really have zero euros, it might be a little bit harder doing it, because of in the end, you also have the studio to pay to master the record, you have to have someone to do the artwork, if you can do all of these things yourself yeah maybe you can also do it with next to no funds.
SD: You still need to pay for a flight to find some records and money to buy the records - (flight, education, time for work)
JS: Yeah, sure, I guess that, doing it without any funds will at least make your life very complicated, and also because these days there’s re-releasing records is a big trend, so just because you have a great record and you put it out again, does not guarantee you you sell a lot of I because there’s a lot of great music that get’s re-issued and, even a fairly successful release outside of the very few big things, let’s say like, William Onyeabor something like that, if you sell 5,000 copies that’s a very successful re-issue, so I think often people over estimate the economic aspects, nobodies getting rich by re-releasing music, there’s a lot of re-issues that do maybe 500 vinyl copies and the profit margin on something like this is very very slim. Yeah
Yeah I think so, this whole idea I think links back to the whole idea of exploitation and everything and just because you’re not getting rich by it, does not make it better fi someone is treating an artist poorly, but, I think yeah, in this whole discussion there is a common misconception about the economic nature of these endeavours, that they are far less lucrative that a lot fo people think. But yeah still – yes it’s far less lucrative than a lot of people think, I still don’t think it’s legitimate excuse – there’s a very big re-issue label who’s very well recovered, but a lot fo their stuff is bootlegs, so I called one of the guys out for using two Ahmed Malek tracks, and he was like yeah, but im not bothered if you're getting rich from it, if you're only making a thousand euro and your not paying the artist, it’s the same problem, even if you’re not making a single euro you should still get a fucking ass.... So yeah for me, Im not making any money from it, or I’m making very little money from it, it is not an excuse to properly do your jobs in terms of licensing.
But its still important to keep in mind that it’s not as financially lucrative – the market is not economically as big as a lot fo people from the outside often assume it is.
SD: Why do you do it then?
JS: In general I like music, and I like enabling music to be heard that is not being heard, to the extent it should be and it allows me to be in a very privileged situation to – I never had a job outside of like student jobs working in bars ect, but I never had a regular 9-5 there was not running my own company and running my own company with what a the source of it is my hobby, and I guess that’s a very privileged position to be in..
So yeah first and for-most finding music that i like, and helping this music to be heard by more people than it would be if just existing in the way it is now...
SD: How important is the internet and computer in the whole system of your label
JS: Obviously very crucial – in terms of digital sales and streaming not so much, there are certain Jaarta records and releases where the total turn over will be 80/90 % digital. So let’s say Murra Massa record we sold maybe 2 3 thousand copies of the albums, but it got streamed millions of times so the majority of the revenue created is from digital sales
For reissue the market is still very physical, maybe we make 20% of the sales at most through digital streams and sales, and the rest is mostly vinyl and some CD’s. Umm but
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For communication it is also very crucial we are active on social media, we are also having for a reissue label, a pretty descent following and for me it is very crucial to be – well you see,
In the old school digging it world, it was normal to be very secretive about what they are doing, where this particular track is coming from, which artist they are working with, because this whole digging thing is very competitive, it was always about – “I have this record that nobody else has” , and I think a lot fo the people who come from this hardcore digging back ground they are a) very competitive and b) always getting scared about someone else finding something they don’t have, or someone else also finding what they thought they were the only one they had. And I thin in the communication, the online communication this translates to not having so much to share, because you don’t always wanna give away what you're working on and stuff like that.
I know I never cared about that, and that kind of works – is one fo the reason why what we do has a very good online following 0 because if you’re not that secretive about the stuff yore working on , who you’re meeting, where you going, where you find your records then this kind of allows you to tell stories and to document them and share them, and doing that again makes it interesting for people to follow your channels and stay up to date with what you’re doing. So yeah I think this is also where there’s a generational difference like a lot of younger reissue labels are having bit more fo this approach, and are also I think a lot more conscious about this whole conversation about cultural appropriation – post colonialism. This is something that I think the older generation of reissue labels didn’t not care about so much, it was not that relevant.
But that’s also because the discussions at the time like identity politics and all fo that was not a topic 15 years ago. There’s this whole new generation of re-issue labels, let’s say Ostinato – Awesome Tapes, and us, who take these things a bit more into consideration in what we are doing.
SD: I feel like you hit the nail on the head there.
JS: Through that, I think part of this competitiveness and this mentality – one result is A) if you look at West African re-issues they are all hating each other, suing one another, there’s a big beef between Analogue and Habibi? And I wouldn’t want to know, I wouldn’t want that, that would be, so I am always trying to make sure I am knowing everyone who is working in the same region and to keep up to date with them, exchange what we are working on, making sure no misunderstandings happen. And I think this mentality is also one fo the reasons why it is such a male driven market.
I mean the whole music industry is male driven anyhow, but I feel when it comes to re-issues it’s even worse, because it’s an environment that is not really welcoming, to open up for women because yeah it has these...
SD: why no women?
JS: I think there are these certain environments that are very male dominated, and once a certain environment becomes very make dominated, I think it usual automatically starts being very exclusive and not umm, and is not really motivating people from outside that don’t fit the overall description to participate, so it becomes like a closed circle, and yeah it’s lie it’s very inked to this competition and I think it’s a lot of the chore values of this whole digging community, is something that is more associated with a certain type of Male behaviour that might not be very appealing to a lot of women to be apart of that, and I think it’s also very very hard for women to be taken serious – I mean you even see that when Djing, just look at ‘jada j’ boiler room, all these guys commenting on how bad she technically plays, if it were to be a dude then you wouldn’t hear these people saying things about my selection an no one would care about the fact it’s technically not incredibly but because it’s women, it’s it’s a critique that gets formatted much quicker and much easier. And yeah I guess it’s something that there’s a lot of
I think to be a part of the digging scene as a women, to be part of the dj scene as women you have to work twice as hard and have much thicker skin that your average man who wants to be apart of these groups.
SD: I’d say every other time I DJ a guy comes and advice’s me...
JS: And even if you uck up, still eh wouldn’t have the nerves or motivation to tell you that if you were a dude playing but yeah that’s exactly the same thing, so yeah either you have a very thick skin and determination and yeah fuck him I don’t care, - but I can see how it’s very off putting and that makes a lot of women quite doing what they are doing, because yeah it’s not very – maybe its nto the way you want to get feedback to what you're doing.
Also saying that I know the feeling, how it’ hurts when you have to share, especially when you have that one record you cant decide on.
SD: With you label there seems to be a need to tell the story more, and some don’t that sits uneasy with me, studying ethnomusicology, all I want to hear is the stories behind it, and those that don’t do that raise a question of why? And if it does come down to serving down this sort of privilege of I want to keep this a secret because it’s mine and I found it, that doesn’t sit with me too well.
JS: for us all the whole contextualising thing is very crucial – I don know fi you saw, but we did our first documentary, we did an exhibition in Dubai and we are working on another exhibition this summer in Nigeria, and we are just waiting I had a crazy exhibition in the museum of modern art, so out exhibition will be after *artist* exhibition so ...haha. That’s super crazy, we are just waiting for approval from the ministry of culture of Nigeria so and also all fo these projects with the
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exhibitions and the movies, they don’t create any profit so they are actually putting in money ourselves.
.........SD & JS chatter....
