5 Things That Are Killing Kenya’s Music Industry

Let’s not pretend, our music industry has several wounds that are being covered rather than treated. We’re in the midst of a disruption that will shred us to ruins if we do not act. Kenya’s music industry is unwell. A good number of artistes can be lauded for putting Kenya on the map but it’s obvious things are not getting any better. So who’s at fault? Ummm….let’s see

Radio stations

Some radio stations repeat the same damn songs all day yet there’s abundance of talent in our country. The media houses that spam us with Nigerian and Bongo songs are many. Worse still, some keep playing music that was composed by people who died ages ago and are now chilling with Angel Gabriel at some corner in heaven. They shove foreign music down our throats and we are left with no choice but to persevere through the absurd playlists like a kid taking Malaria pills.

I have to salute stations like Homeboyz Radio, Citizen, Capital and One FM. These stations do their best to promote local talent. Homeboyz plays plenty of Kenyan music and even has shows dedicated to underground artistes. Capital does the same on weekday evenings. One FM producers deserve a round of applause too even though their playlists are still inflated with the ‘are you gonna dance’ type of music. All artistes, big or small can also appreciate Citizen and Mzazi Wully M Tuva.

Fame hungry artistes

There’s a new crop of artistes who want to be Justin Bieber after releasing one song. They want to get ‘Anaconda’ views from a mediocre track- a bunch of artistes who get into the music industry with no solid objective in mind. All they think of is the money, the groupies and the fame. These artistes won’t even take time to sharpen their craft. Pretty often you’’ll bump into a singer or rapper who wants to be like Jaguar or Sauti Sol without having to go through the hustle. Jaguar started out in 2004. Back then, no one even gave a damn about him. 10 years later, he’s the king. He never gave up. Sauti Sol used to perform for less than 100 people. Nowadays ladies push and step on each other with sharp heels from Gikomba juts to get a crisp view of the popular boy band. Artistes nowadays don’t want to take the journey; they just want to be equals with the greats.

Corporate obstacles

How many times have you tried watching a video on YouTube and before it’s even half way, you get the ‘Your data bundle balance is below 2MB’ message. Consequently, lots of raiyaa refrain from opening YouTube videos on their phones. What’s the result? Views are dreadfully low. Our top artistes can’t even get beyond the 200,000 views mark. Safaricom and all other internet service providers ought to make ‘YouTube’ access free perhaps. YouTube views are beneficial to all artistes. The higher the views, the more seriously an artiste will be taken by the outside world.

Poor fan support

Kenyans just won’t buy music. Try to release an album and your total sales will be equivalent to your shoe size number. In Kenya, record sales are never enough to make an artist’s career, and they certainly aren’t enough to ensure success. The international music industry clings desperately to sales to survive, but that model doesn’t work here . Fans just offer their favorite artistes liquid attention and Facebook likes rather than solid support. Artistes that go out of their way in the use of quality music production still get more criticism than acclaim. Elsewhere, Tanzanian’s crowd in streets to welcome Diamond whenever he wins an award.  We are just not happy for our own acts.

Kenya’s music industry has been rocked by new trends and over the past few years, has succumbed to a state of near free-fall. It’s clutching to whatever few straws are left in an attempt to salvage profit from the remains of its broken business models. All this is because of poor fan support

Zero cooperation among artistes

Majority of Kenyan artistes are indeed in good terms with each other. They are not feuding or anything but you won’t find them even coming together to do collabos. Perhaps it’s the jealousy and selfishness. Every artiste wants to be the top dawg. They fear being out shined in their own tracks by other artistes. It’s never a big deal.

Many international acts have been outshined by their peers on tracks but you never hear them causing tantrums about it. It’s all love. Jay Z was made to look like an amateur by Eminem in his own track which also happens to be one of the greatest hip hop tunes of all time – Renegade. Big Sean was outshined by Kendrick and so on. We need to hear more collabos. We need to have a culture where artistes are happy for each other and promoting each others music to their fans.