Artists are complaining, producers are complaining, writers are complaining and funnily enough even the media is complaining! The question has always been; who is to blame as much as promoting local content is concerned, and from there the cat and mouse games starts, shifting blames, but here’s the truth.
First of all, The Public – The public (in this case Kenyans) play a major role in promoting local content, they have the power to decide whether to listen/buy to your music or watch your movie/show hence deciding your fate in the entertainment industry.
Kenya has the most rigid crowd have I have ever witnessed anywhere in this world, and I can prove that any day anytime. It’s only in Kenya where an established artist will have a show and the tickets are going for a low as Ksh. 500, then you see only 100 people crawling in. Then I wonder how much the artiste walks away with, considering there are also bills to be payed. If you think Ksh.500 or Ksh.200 is too much for Kenyans, then you are wrong, since I can remember last year during the Kenya at 50 celebrations, Safaricom together with the government brought almost all Kenyan artistes and Jamaica’s Tarrus Rilley at Kasarani for a totally free event, but still my dear Kenyans couldn’t even fill the stadium!
Enough of attending events, do we even buy the original music or film? The answer is NO, this is so sad, having it in mind that you’re the same person who will go around telling your friends how you saw an artist or an actor in matatu, how they have low quality videos and more of Negative things. Do we even visit theaters to watch our plays or we just make sure we are the first ones to watch Captain America on it’s premiere day.
There is just too much I can talk about Kenyans, but hey, let’s support and build KENYAN CONTENT.
Secondly, The Media – Yes, the media has greatly contributed to the death of local content. Every time I’m doing an interview with an artiste or a producer, what always comes up is “We don’t get enough airplay” which has now turned into a cliché. Most of our radio stations don’t play local music, and if they do, it’s during a one or two hours segment then everything goes back to normal (in this case playing “Caro”,”wine n kotch and the rest).
What about our TV stations? I will leave it to you to answer that. Comedia and Radio presenter Jalango’ has this to say ” An artist, you will also have your song played if you match the international production quality, as a presenter I want to play R Kelly then play your song and don’t feel the difference in production quality. Some artists killed themselves before even the government killed them!“. There you have it.
Moving on to The Government, Which through the Youth Fund released Ksh300 million to promote local music and film industry but several months later there was nothing. I reached out to the Chairman,Youth Enterprise Development Fund.Government of The Republic of Kenya (before his replacement) and this is what he said ” You can’t say we don’t support local content, we will be launching the take 254 leta action in the next few weeks“. However TV host, Actress and Writer Lucy Waigera says “What support does local content ever get from the government? To be honest, are there even labor laws governing or protecting actors in terms of pay or contract?. They keep saying they will regulate laws for content and give local content 70%, all I see is more soaps. Though some are supportive, the public is just full of haters who rarely appreciate any work. If we speak swahili, we are trying to be Tanzanians”
Conclusion: We all have roles to play in promoting our own. Let’s visit the theaters, buy original local movies and music and most importantly stop hating our own. The media, stop complaining how expensive it is to air local program or play local Music hence flooding our screens with South America “Sh!t”. The government should do it’s best, to make sure we have a generation of creative people not good listeners and watchers.
Who will tell our stories if we don’t ?
