Considering the growing number of talented number of musicians in the state with no proper platform to showcase their work, young Yanpvuo Kikon launched the website ‘indihut.com’ in the year 2013.
Yanpvuo and his brother Liyo started the site with the sole aim of providing a proper platform for the musicians of the NE with their savings.
Indihut at present has 130 registered artists form Nagaland and even abroad with lakhs national and international visitors.
EASTERN MIRROR: Birth of indihut
YANPVUO KIKON (YAN): We often talk about the music industry in our State but the question was do we have a marketable, exportable product to use the term ‘industry’ synonymous with our local musicians? Do we have a platform to showcase our musicians to the world? Circa 2012, we did not have one so that is when me and my brother Liyo started to do some research on e-commerce website development and learnt to make one for ourselves by watching youtube tutorials and e-books on the internet.
We always believed that whenever we see any problem, we should also be able to not only identify the solution but also work towards building the solution and positively impact our society. Investing our own savings and pocket money of about Rs.12,000 indihut was launched in June 2013. After two years, today we have over 130 artists from Nagaland and even abroad, released 296 original songs. We got around 3.69 lakh visits in the last financial year from over 100 countries with top sessions from India, US, UAE, Thailand, UK, South Korea, China, Netherlands and Germany.
EASTERN MIRROR: How would you describe yourself - the man behind indihut. For those who are not aware of the invisible hero who has worked tirelessly for the musicians of our state.
YAN: There is not ‘a’ man but a ‘team’ who works tirelessly to ensure that this platform from Nagaland stands out among the North-Eastern States and to showcase to the rest of the country and the world that we, the new Naga generation’s weapon of choice is not guns or violence as often stereotyped by mainland media but talent and creativity. The team comprises of the content management team led by Irwin Kath, Rachel Thong, Kevisa Vivose and Amber Oung. We are now joined by content analysts Nikope Koza and Thejavilie Luho as interns to work on the audio visualizations for our channel.
Describing me? A practical idealist? If there is such a term, if not then it just got coined! I would rather be someone who solves the problem instead of the person whining and criticizing whole day without doing anything about it :)
I like reading about new trends from across the world, keeping myself updated, and learning something new everyday. These inspirations empower us with ideas to solve the problems in our society. I simply do stuff that I am passionate about and pursue things that are productive and fulfilling. We may seek fame, fortune and prestige but at the end of the day, the only thing that can bring real happiness is in being able to serve others and positively impact our society that would always fetch us greater joy than working only for our own personal benefit or glory.
Touring Indihut. Rate the performances and skills of Naga musicians when compared with other musicians.
I have always attended numerous shows in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and have always been closely associated with independent musicians in other States so I believe I can provide a personal perspective towards a comparison. In terms of creativity and musical talent, I can confidently say our musicians are among the top in the country without any exaggeration.
Skill and Talent - 7/10 but our local musicians also need to pursue serious music academics and training as well because that will polish their skills to a great extent. But many of our local musicians lack ‘Relevance’, ‘Professionalism’ in terms of not even having press kits, band managers, forget about tech riders for live performances as rightly pointed out by Atsung Jamir of Audio Garage.
Marketability - Since the topic revolves around the ‘Industry’, Marketability has become one of the most important parameters for a musician to thrive in a music industry. In order to develop this parameter, a musician not only needs to sharpen his skills but also her branding, personality, on-stage and off-stage presence and make music that is relevant to the present generation and appeal to a wider audience so that your product isn’t just a local one but something which can be exported because that is when the term ‘Industry’ would make sense - ‘Export’!
We only have a few successful exports with great marketability who get invited to shows to other States and countries, where they can make upto 40 lakh annually or much higher only through performances. They are our successful role models like Alobo Naga, Nise Meruno, Dj Ina, Purple Fusion, Tetseo Sisters, Divine Connection etc and now new artists such as Polar Lights, We The Giants, Akummika, Tuden, Shalo Kent etc are in rising demand and even getting invites to perform in the biggest festival in India such as NH7 Weekender. This shows that in the last 2-3 years our music industry has suddenly shot up and seem to be overtaking the rest of the North-Eastern States including Mizoram and Meghalaya. But we need to produce more music exports and we have the potential to do so.
For indihut, we look for great marketability in an artist because for any music industry to thrive and prosper, a music icon that can be exported beyond the State so that in a way, our land tag also changes from being known as a ‘Disturbed’ area into a ‘Musical Area’.
What do you think could be the main reason behind many Naga musicians who though very talented fail to meet the national standards.
Not only musicians but also all our other artisans and people who manufacture any kind of product in Nagaland. We fail in these aspects:
1. Relevance - Is your product relevant to the market? Put yourself in the shoes of the customer and think whether you will buy your own product if it is in the shelves of a shop. How to overcome this? Exposure. Read, research on the internet and keep yourselves updated on the latest trends in the global market and get professional branding and marketing help.
In Nagaland we know very little about ‘Branding’ but branding is one of the most critical aspect to market any product. If the product photography, creatives, texts, colours are designed poorly then your product will always look inferior to other similar products in the market. It is very important for any product based business to invest amply in ‘Brand building’.
We now have professional branding consultants in Nagaland, some of them like Gorilla Marketing group, Sinlo Kemp, Jam Studio 11 etc and ample professional photographers and digital artists. Get their help but just as you expect people to buy your music,you should also invest in your brand by paying for their services.
indihut advice to all musicians in Nagaland.
As a music platform focusing on global relevance & marketability, a general advice would seem inappropriate for all musicians, but just a word of encouragement is that at this digital age where cassettes and CD’s has become passe, instead of thinking of this as a dark age for musicians, consider this as a huge blessing because now we have platforms like youtube with monetization opportunities where you make money just by sitting at home and making great videos.
We have platforms like indihut where you can sell your music and use it as a launchpad to reach out to a bigger audience and be recognized. With the advent of digital age, anybody can become a superstar; all you have to do is stay focused, passionate, hard working, work on your personality and branding but most importantly sing and compose songs that come out from the depths of your heart instead of simply copying or emulating others; because I have seen that those who work with their heart and soul always come out shining. Seek professional help from our already successful artists, attend music workshops and read popular music blogs from rolling stones, pitchfork or even our indiblog.
