Rootfire Cooperative Aims to Help Reggae Acts with No-Interest Loans
The News:
Rootfire Cooperative, a not for profit company, has announced an exciting update for reggae acts – now they’re offering no-interest micro-loans which pay for the production, manufacturing and marketing of their albums as well as administrative services. Created through a partnership with Ineffable Music Group, a full service artist management company based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Rootfire Cooperative mission is to positively contribute and participate in the progressive roots, reggae, and dub community by providing resources to artists for production, marketing, and manufacturing of recorded music.
“Rootfire Cooperative is dedicated to providing reggae artists with opportunities to make music of the finest quality and reach the largest audience possible,” said Seth Herman who founded Rootfire as a management company in 2010 while he was managing three American reggae bands, Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad, John Brown’s Body and The Green.
The loans distributed by Rootfire Cooperative are privately financed by Ineffable through profits made from their talent buying and festival production divisions. “Artists lacking adequate financing are probably not spending enough producing, mixing or mastering their albums and if they spend money on those things, then they probably can’t afford promotion and advertising,” Herman explains. “We thought if we can impact the quality then create campaigns behind the music, maybe we can have an overarching effect on the reggae business.”
Making sure their artists don’t get the short end of the stick, Rootfire Cooperative doesn’t take any portion of an album’s profits, recouping only its invested funds, and the artists maintain 100% ownership of their music. “Rootfire Cooperative is part of a larger trend of breaking down the barriers of entry that makes the traditional major label paradigm obsolete; it’s the logical extension of live music and access to channels that were previously guarded,” observes Thomas Cussins, talent buyer and artist manager at Ineffable. Rootfire Cooperative’s releases for the rest of the year include albums by Hawaiian female singer Hirie, Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad, as well as releases from Jamaican acts. Says Cussins, “There are so many reggae elements in major hits right now, I think reggae could be the next EDM in terms of different sub genres blending into one big genre that just takes over.”
Please contact Michelle for more info.
Founded in 2006, Ineffable Music is a boutique management firm and record label with a roster featuring the likes of Hieroglyphics, Collie Buddz, Zion I, CunninLynguists, Stick Figure, Los Rakas, Rey Resurreccion, Pep Love, ill-esha, Amp Live, Vokab Kompany, A-Plus, Wheeland Brothers, A-1, Crush Effect, and Nima Fadavi. With a focus on cultivating the live experience through proper touring and effective branding, Ineffable Music has established a reputation for having an effective and no-nonsense approach to the business. On the creative side, “We are fans first and foremost” explains co-founder Thomas Cussins “but, we select who we work with based on personality and character just as much as music.” The word “ineffable” is defined as: too great or intense to be expressed in words and propels the motto of striving for uncompromising quality.
official site | twitter | facebook | youtube | soundcloud | instagram