We are well used to musicians turning to crowdfunding platforms to help get proposed albums, tours and other music projects off the ground. In the case of M.I.A., she is turning to Patreon to focus on her non-musical pursuits.
She is asking people to donate $5 or $10 a month to help support her various art projects, stressing that she is still working on music and is close to completing her sixth album.
“I’m doing a Patreon, because I make so much stuff and record so many things that aren’t music and don’t fit on other platforms,” she says on her Patreon page. “I’m making films, music, making art and I’ll be posting that process on here. But I want to make it fun and random, it might be ASMR Sri Lankan cooking, or I might go and stay in a silent Ashram in India for a month and just not speak, or I want to interview interesting people, do some reporting, make clothes, make paintings, just see where it takes me.”
For those giving $5 a month, they will get access to her video diaries where she travels the world making art and music, access to footage that did not make it into the MATANGI/MAYA/M.I.A. documentary, access to the Fly Pirates community, posts about her art and access to all her archived livestreams.
For those paying $10 a month, they will be given access to monthly livestreams, they can participate in a monthly Q&A, get early access to posts/content as well as some “random surprise content” as and when it is available. “It might be a song, a recipe, a manifesto, maybe I could help you with your homework, you guys could be my manager for a day, tell me what to do with my career, therapy sessions, dating advice, we’ll see what happens,” she says.
The ugly aftermath of the crash of PledgeMusic is still being felt by musicians – especially those working hand to mouth and whose projects on the doomed platform either never came to fruition or ended up costing them vast sums of money. Against this backdrop, it is encouraging that musicians have not lost faith in crowdfunding and are looking to use it for all their creative endeavours – not just their musical ones.
