Music-talents are supposed to be money-making tools for both the artiste and their record labels. It however takes a lot of investment in the artiste’s music-talent as well as his personality before the talent pays off. For any record label, the first and a very critical aspect of the music-making business is discovering the music-talents. Whilst some would scout for talents at music reality shows, others chance upon them at unexpected places including churches, funerals or by recommendation. But after the discovery comes the real work - grooming the raw-talent to attain that desired commercial value. Kiki Banson, Chief Executive of DKB Records, managers of songstress Becca, knows all the difficulties of investing in freshly discovered talents. “ The kind and level of investment made in any artiste would depend on the shortcomings of the artiste in question. For some the strengths is in song-writing, others vocal performance and others simply charisma. But basically you’d have to develop the artiste to understand music as a business” he said. Record labels also invest to build the brand of the artiste to enhance his or her commercial value as with all other products on the market. Daniel Obeng manager of Empire Records also says they invest in the artistes’ wardrobe; provide him or her with a car as well as accommodation. “Because we see him as our product that we have to sell, we always have to maintain a the high standards regardless of the situation” he said. The services of stylists, photographers, concept-developers are also required to help couch a desired image and positioning for the artiste. According to the Mr. Banson the real test in determining if indeed an artiste is worth all this investment is dependent on the commitment exhibited by the artiste rather than his or her talent. “Talent does just about 15% of the work. The rest where the artiste is concerned is the commitment and the will to work hard. That is the number one thing every serious record label across the world would look out for.” he noted. Kiki Banson said record labels do not make money from their artistes until after about 3 years. The process he noted begins with establishing the commercial life-span of the artiste. “We invest in the artiste for between 3 to 4 years before we start seeing profits. There are certain outstanding cases where its much shorter than that. So I would want to be convinced that for at least 15 years, that artiste would be around so he or she is worth investing the time and money in” he concluded. This is a part of a series dubbed “SHOW-BUSINESS IN GHANA” currently running on the JOYBUSINESS Reports at 6am, 8am, 1pm and 6:30pm and also on Business Trends @ 2:05pm Every Wednesday on JOY FM.