There's an old song lyric that goes: ''You don't know what you've got till it's gone."It captures the experience of quite a number of South African musicians who fled our borders seeking fame around the world before returning home to find that all of a sudden they were the belles of the homecoming ball.This trend, especially among the electronic music fraternity, begs the question, do musicians really have to go overseas to make it big at home?The obvious answer is no.Last year rapper Cassper Nyovest became the first local artist to sell out The Dome in Northgate.His nemesis, AKA, recently made BBC Radio 1 Xtra's list of hottest artists to look out for this year and Black Coffee is playing at Coachella, one of the biggest festivals in the world.All of these are home-grown talents who spent years building strong fan bases in their own backyards before courting major success.But the same can't be said for all local musos. Cape Town-born electronic musician Petite Noir, having received critical acclaim across the globe, performed in the Mother City for the first time last weekend, despite having played in Europe and parts of the US for years.Aero Manyelo is another example of a local artist who first had to make waves abroad before audiences at home started taking serious notice of him.Thanks to Soundcloud and similar apps, Manyelo built up audiences in places like the UK, France and Germany.As his reputation in Europe grew, so did the demand for him back home. This became obvious during his set at last weekend's Cape Town Electronic Music Festival, where he was a headline act."Many local artists feel they have to look overseas to pursue their careers because of the lack of support from the industry," said Good Hope FM presenter and cofounder of Cape Town's iKasi Experience, Loyiso Mdebuka.Electronic musos are not the only ones who feel like they have to look elsewhere to get the necessary support. A number of rock bands have also begun focusing heavily on international markets to prop up flagging local demand."I wish we'd done the overseas thing when we were younger," said Zebra and Giraffe lead vocalist Greg Carlin. ''Guys like Prime Circle are killing it in Germany and there are a whole lot of other bands who have taken that route as well."The problem seems to be that where radio-friendly genre s are concerned, the plot for stardom is more straightforward than it is for those catering to non-commercial tastes.Musicians can still be successful on those platforms, it just takes a little more tactical nous. Getting the attention of overseas audiences is akin to having another woman throw lusty glances at you to get the attention of the girl you really want. The tactic is working well for some...