Defected is a modern day dance music success. There’s some discussion about specifics with what they’re doing, but one thing they undeniably do well is marketing, with their social media platforms having all grown substantially during the pandemic.
There’s just one exception where the Defected machine can’t seem to quite get it right – Sondela. This is a record label that Defected launched a few months ago with a focus on house music with a more African influence. On Twitter, for example, Defected has 214,000 followers. Sondela? Just 465.
So what’s going on here? An insider tells me “I get the feeling that Defected didn’t quite know what they were getting themselves into with this. The bad publicity before launch didn’t help, and many of the artists who we were interested in are spurning us.”.
He also said “Simon’s also up to the eyeballs working on making sure Croatia happens. When you add on everything else going on, I sometimes get the feeling the bosses don’t see Sondela as a priority at the moment.”.
Another factor that this blog has spotted is when you type “Sondela” into Google, this is what you see…
It does look lovely, to be fair. Although that’s probably of no help to Sondela…
[…] Last week, I wrote about how Sef Kombo had decided to leave his job at Transport for London to run Sondela Recordings full time. Since then, a curious thing has happened. Defected appears to have suddenly remembered they exist. I’m sure this criticism had nothing to do with it… […]
[…] post that I did the other day in a rather different context. It turns out one of the reasons that Sondela isn’t doing too well is that it’s effectively been under part time […]