Newport Artist Murkage Signs to SIKA Records

S – Who are you signed with now?

Murkage – SIKA studios – They manage Devilman, and are an agent for M Dot R and do so much other stuff it’s hard to list it all now.
The owner is Chris, but he’s got a team that runs the SIKA Record record label and agency, so they can fund stuff like the tour I’ve always wanted to do that I’ve never been able to fund. [SIKA] will message all the venues across Wales, and book them up through the agency. We should have movement with that soon. 

S – Nice, so how did that come about?

Murkage – So basically, my mate Endo was signed to a management deal with them as well. You know Endo from Cardiff?

S – Oh, one of the judges from Rhyme and Shine?

Murkage – Yeah, he’s a big drum and bass MC he is. He’s big in the game. 

So he’s signed to the SIKA agency as well as SIKA management, so after a meeting with SIKA, they proposed to try and work out a licensing deal for my Mary Jane track for me, because I wanted to do something with my back catalogue. And I was in talks with him like that, and he just said, We’ll get you right on board and get you all types of opportunities. I feel like you are a massive artist, but you’re not getting the opportunities to shine and we will help you with that. 

S – 100%, I think anyone who knows you and follows your career knows that you should be a lot bigger than what you get access to

Murkage – Yeah, that’s what it is bro. So, I’m just trying to build, and make it happen now. These are good guys to let us have these opportunities. Hopefully big things should start coming now. 

S – What do you expect to come from this signing going forward? You’ve already mentioned the tour?

Murkage – Getting more opportunities to work with bigger artists and take my music to bigger places on a global scale. Usually if you have a manager, a manager can only guide you so much but because SIKA do management and agency now, say if I have a booking, I’ll run it through my manager and agent at the same time… Its like a 360 deal, everything is taken care of. They are even redesigning me a logo.

S – Sounds good man!

Murkage – When it’s an agency bro, they go and get you the bookings, they go and do a lot more stuff. When it comes to analytics, they analyse and capitalise on areas my music could go further and things like that, help find my target audience. Things like features, if I need features, where they’ve got other big artists on the label, someone like Devilman, I wouldn’t have to pay so much for, it’d be cheap. It’s all direct and a lot different with these guys behind me.

S – Happy days. Anything else?

Murkage – Um… what do I want? What do I want to get from it? Basically, I just want to get a good foundation going forward bro and I can build from that. Things like tours, consistency, merchandise, more music, more new music, bigger features. Elevate the career to another level. I feel like I’ve hit a brick wall with where I can go independently. 

S – I think you posted a status recently about your tour. I know you’ve mentioned it on the call already. How much of that is sorted?

Murkage – They’ve got 30+ welsh venue names and email addresses. They [SIKA] are contacting all of those venues and will find the best 10 that are the best fit, and process the booking to create the tour. We’ll be going to all of North, East, South and West Wales. The top at Wrexham, down to Narberth, across to Cardiff and Newport, Abergavenny and Aberystwyth, Bridgend. We’ll do those and then use the hype from that to promote the tour we’ll do in England. Then extend it into Europe.
We’re going to call it the Murkage tour, to make it more commercial. If we call it the Mary Jane tour, venues might be put off thinking that everyone is going to be smoking weed, so we’ll call it the Murkage tour to be advertised better. 

S – So the tour is confirmed, it’s literally just locking down the dates and locations, ready to be announced. 

Murkage – Yeah pretty much, just working with the right venues who allow us to do what we are trying to achieve, I can’t say too much but it will be a special and very memorable series of events. In the meantime, there’s still going to be bookings, I’ve got a few festival things on the cards and club nights.
I got one in Cardiff, Ms Pink in July. I got one in the Moon Club, that’s going to be announced any day now. I’m headlining that. I’m playing on the main stage at Balter festival in Chepstow on Saturday 24th May with SIKA. We’ve got a few more in the pipeline, then there’s the tour after that. Inbetween all that I’m recording and shooting music videos. They’re going to licence three tunes for me now to a catalogue partner that licences back catalogues. We’re in the works of putting a portfolio together of my three biggest songs and contracting them as part of a big deal.

S – How do you feel about working with SIKA? Are you excited? Nervous?

Murkage – I’m excited. I’m not nervous because previously I’ve worked with a lot of the services they provide individually already. This is the first time I’ve signed an actual 360 deal though. I feel a lot more confident. I’m a lot more relaxed. It takes the pressure off, they kind of do most of the work for me. All I’ve got to do is just keep on making good music and just turn up and perform. It gives me time to perfect my craft, you get me? It carries a load off for me and lets me have the opportunity to focus on Rhyme and Shine, be flexible with my business ideas and opportunities and I don’t have to put all of my time into other aspects of my music career. I can start doing new ventures as well. 

S – I suppose it’ll be good for family time as well. 

Murkage – Yeah, 100%, it frees up a lot of my time. Even though I’ll be doing a lot more gigs. They’ve said to me, a lot of these gigs I can take my family with me especially if they’re abroad. They’re about Australia next year. Bro, they do massive things and have toured lots of artists internationally. They do lots of things like even their whole own festival stages! Fingers crossed it all keeps flowing nice and everything just keep growing. 

S – I hope the SIKA agency really helps you out with stuff like visas and really sorts it out. 

Murkage – Yeah, they’ll sort that for me. There’s a few things man they’ve really been on my case with, fair play. 

S – One of the things I think people want to know, did it come with an advance?

Murkage – Well, yes if I take the licensing deal it will provide me with a big advance. However as and when I make more music, depending on the route we choose, hopefully the big players like Sony might say they want to sign me to a 5 year contract. We want three albums, this and that, all with a big advance.
SIKA are like – do you know when the president is running for a campaign, and they got a campaign manager? It’s kind of like that bro, but for bigger opportunities. Then they’re happy to let you go, because they’ll get a piece of the pie when they make the deal happen or sell your music on. They’re very keen on getting me some good deals. I am really looking forward to seeing what these opportunities bring to me. I am wary of big label deals though as sometimes say a million pound advance or buy out may look very appealing but it can come with a bad contract that restricts what I can do as an artist. However now I know have a team behind me that wont let that happen and regret it down the line.

S – That’s a genuinely good answer.

Murkage – Also, Cardiff music conference bro! I’m also performing there! Yeah, that’s being finalised now, just waiting for that to be confirmed, but they’ve messaged. There’s been talks with that. It’s looking good. There’s been a lot of motion going on. 

As soon as I deal with the licensing of the back catalogue, I can start focusing on new music. I just want to licence my old music and be like, right that’s done. I can focus on new projects. I’ve been trying to sell old ones and not being motivated to make any more music until I capitalise on the old stuff.  

S – Well it sounds like cleaning house bro. A bit of spring cleaning. Out with the old, in with the new. 

Murkage – That’s exactly where I am with it. I want these guys to clean everything up, get a licensing deal and as part of that I’ll have the licensee and SIKA pushing the old tracks as well, its a very positive situation. Then I’ll have a new clean slate. I got some motivation. I got some money. I can be really active then. 

S – Last question. What advice would you give to smaller artists looking to get a deal. 

Murkage – This can be given in bare different answers, because I feel like everyone is different. Depending on your circumstances. You might have a mate who knows a manager and you can just take him on his word of mouth. Or you can have some actual credentials, and you can go off, and it’s a bit different. I feel like you got to have a plan. You got to have a bit of a plan. You got to be able to brand your name. You need to get people knowing you. You need to be selling music. You need to show a label why they should invest in you. What you can bring to them so they can help you. Basically, it’s helping each other. The label wants to help you, and you want to help them. It’s knowing where you want to go as an artist, what you can offer a label and what the label can offer you. Capitalise on that. Lock in, focus in. Practising. Perfect your craft. When it feels right then, the labels will eventually come knocking bro. That’s the key to it; the labels will come knocking when the music is popping. 

S – Anything else you want added to this interview?

Murkage – I just want to keep inspiring people. I just want to keep chasing my dream. Showing people that there’s always new doors and new avenues to go in. Keep growing as an artist. New opportunities to come and network and meet new people. Showing the next generation that there’s levels to come, and that they can keep growing and blossoming. And also, along the way, opening things like Rhyme and Shine – the talent show, and celebrity football matches. We’re looking to do a record label for Rhyme and Shine. After the talent show finished, we’ll be doing a contract with the top 3 artists. We’ll be doing an EP with them and doing all their content. Writing the songs for them, producing the music, setting up the distribution. So, when we finish with them, they’ve got music that’ll make money for them and they’ve got a foundation. We’ll leave them with a foundation and a bit of marketing and information, and they’ll be able to manage themselves as artists. 

You got to think bro, these artists don’t have a clue. They’re like, “what do we do now?” I’m like, we’ll sort out the studio, we’ll write you a song and produce the beat, we’re going to record it. We’ll teach you how to sing it, we’ll do all of that. We’ve got links with Bristol radio and Newport City radio. There’re opportunities already. Next year, we’re taking it to Cardiff, Swansea and Merthyr [Tydfil] to audition, there’s much more planned. There’re bigger cash prizes. Yeah, we’ve got some big plans.

And that concluded the end of our phone interview regarding Murkage’s signing to SIKA Records.