KULTURE . . . Update

Cafe Locked Out

When I was heading back to Melbourne, after a few years on the road collating the stories of over 1600 people, I felt, spiritually, that something had to change. Then in Gympie I found a man looking at my bus, Florence, which is covered in images of freedom people. The man’s name was Jim Scott.

Unjabbed, Jim knew nothing about our tribe and his own people were all pro narrative so he had, for several years, been living like a leper, thinking he was utterly alone. When I informed him he wasn’t, he broke down. 

Following that he played me some songs that he’d been writing to stay sane. Not one of his people liked them, and on youtube they’d only had  a few likes.

But the songs were incredible, and after filming him singing The Crime, on the side of Lake Liddle, I posted it on twitter and within a week it’d had over 400K views.

I felt like I had been given a lost soul to help, a lost soul with a gift that had the power to heal.

It was then I decided to set up Kulture, a community of Liberated, Artistic Frontline fighters of hope. 

Then Jim left.

Our last conversation was on the phone, where I told him greatness is not a destiny, it’s a choice, and even deciding to strive to be great was greatness in itself. Currently humanity was under attack, I told him, and the Meek can’t save us, what we need is an army of greatness.

He was sobbing as I told him this, and then he was gone.  

So, with not one single artist in my stable, I returned to Melbourne, and with homelessness in my rearview mirror, I put out the call and other artists answered.    

I started doing a Kulture show every Sunday night but on the ninth show, I had figured out how to sell their work. 

I had already learned that youtube and spotify rip the artists off; using their content to make themselves rich and offering little to nothing in return. 

I was also aware that we had scarcity;  A troupe of musos, painters and playwrights willing to put their careers in danger so that their souls could create freely. For you see, Art is the soul's self-healing tool, but it only works if the artist is free.

I now bookend our interviews with the songs of our Kulture Artists, offering them a chance of reaching other markets.

We sell the songs for $5.00 each. $3.00 for the artist, $2.00 to Café Locked Out/Kulture. 

Numerous people in the music industry said no one would pay $5.00 for a song but we proved them wrong when in the first day after show #9 we sold over 100 songs. 

Since then several of the Kulture artists have told me they have made more money in that first week of Kulture than they had ever made with the other streaming services.

Now we are preparing albums, merch and live shows, and we are determined to pay our artists as we have been, so that out there, those artists who are dying to create pieces about things that matter, might be inspired to join us.

I’m also hoping that our Tribes will stop using the songs of artists who don’t like us and support our own artists instead. 

What Kulture is also doing, is showing that our Tribe, under duress, has started creating our own culture. This is something to be proud of, and we have earned that right.

To check out the work go to   https://cafelockedout.com/kulture/

Michael Gray Griffith