"Distro" Or "Publishing"? The Difference, And Why Aspiring Musical Artists Need To Know It.

Introduction

There is a popular slang in the Ghanaian music fraternity regarding success, which is stated as follows: "Blowing no get formula." It is a saying often used by emerging artists whenever they employ various unconventional means of promoting their music, all in furtherance of same going viral on the internet. At the heart of this saying, is that there is no magic formula for success in the music industry. This is true. Ghanaian artists like Amaarae, Black Sherif, and Gyakie, who were all at some point in the Ghanaian "underground" music scene, had no foreknowledge of the exact stage in their music careers when they were going to become global sensations.

The above notwithstanding, there is also another popular saying which goes like this: "Success is when preparation meets opportunity." Albeit there may not be a magic formula for success in the music industry, it is important for artists to be adequately informed about the business (which invariably