One of my favorite thinkers in marketing is Seth Godin. Among his most famous works is a book called “Tribes”. The premise of this book is that people tend to co-exist within small groups, which he calls a ‘tribe’. These groups need only two things to become tribes: 1. a shared interest, and 2. a way to communicate. Each tribe needs a leader (or leaders), and as Godin suggests, “You can’t have a tribe without a leader and you can’t be a leader without a tribe.” People can belong to more than one tribe, and even be a leader of different tribes. In both the book and his Ted Talk “The Tribes We Lead,” he makes the claim that tribes were once local, but with advances in technology, specifically the internet, they can now be formed globally.
Now that we have the general concept of a tribe out of the way, let’s focus on how tribes affect the music industry. Tribes can be organized in many forms, including by genre, by record label affiliation, by location or by fan base. Let’s look at genre and the art form of Jazz, which has become a very niche market. Though still popular in many circles, Jazz is no longer considered Pop music, the way it once was in the early 20th century. Within Jazz, there are different tribes based on musicians, sub-genres, and locality. It is important when recognizing a tribe to understand the roles each member play and to properly communicate both in and outside of the tribe. Take the example of popular Jazz musician Robert Glasper. He would be considered a leader of the tribe, but may not be the primary leader. If the tribe consists of a fan club, the leader of the fan club may assume that role. Their duty is to properly communicate with the tribe and lead them in their goal of enjoying and promoting the music of Robert Glasper. As the leader communicates to the tribe, the tribe has a responsibility to communicate back to the leader, to each other, and to outsiders. This helps solidify the goals of the tribe and what their true identity is. In marketing, Godin makes it clear that the focus of the leader is to market to the tribe, not to the crowd. The tribe will then act as evangelists of sorts, which he calls the true fans, who will help to bring more people into the tribe. Once the tribe comes together around a specific purpose, in this case Robert Glasper’s music, and grows to a number of a thousand or more, it is better able to make and meet specific goals, one of which might be helping to promote his music to larger platforms. These goals, when accomplished, can be transformed into a movement.
This is how someone like Chance the Rapper went from an independent artist who only released a mix-tape to a Grammy awards winner who makes commercials for brands like Twix and Sprite. Starting out in the city of Chicago, he built a small tribe of fans, which eventually grew. He created a team of leaders to help promote his tribe with the goal of making the general public aware of his music. This eventually developed into a movement, opening the door for him to be recognized by multi-platinum artists and mainstream media. He now controls his own narrative. As one of the few independent pop artists, his tribe includes the actor Zac Efron (pictured below), NBA star Carmelo Anthony, and Justin Bieber, whose platforms assist in the marketing of his brand.