This Is How, Why, Where And When Ugandans Beat Us In This Game! Will We Catch Up? (Part 2)

Continued from: Part 1

When Eddy Kenzo released his hit song Sytia Loss a few months ago, little did he know that it would turn out to be the most liked song in East Africa and beyond. Little did Eddy know that Sytia Loss, sang in his native Ugandan language, could get the recognition of the international scene.

Another Nigerian song master, Davido, has followed in the footsteps of his countryman Wizkid and reached an agreement with the upcoming Go Down Low Ugandan singer Pallaso to do a collabo that from the look of things will be one of the most enthralling collabos between a Ugandan and a Nigerian.

For the last couple of days, Davido has pitched tent in Uganda, doing the collabo with Pallaso and after that, he has flown out, again promising us to wait. I mean us Kenyans. That, again, is hitting us below our belts.

Wasn’t Davido in Kenya the other day? Oh the other month? Or the other months? Did he not meet Kenyan artists? Why did he not do a collabo with any of them?

Back closer home. Tanzania’s Diamond is the closest pal Kenyan artistes have. However, it is so appalling that Diamond has made numerous trips to Nigeria and other African countries to meet artistes and do collabos. In fact he has never dreamed of one with a Kenyan singer. The last time he came closer to a Kenyan celebrity was when he lured Avril to appear in his song Kesho as a video vixen. That is the furthest Diamond has travelled with Kenyans. The singer has been within our territories for shows but has never dreamed of working with any of them. In fact it was reported that when he was requested to consider a collabo with Kenya’s gospel singer Bahati, Diamond refused outright, citing that their religions could hamper any efforts to work together. Well, that was a well crafted excuse which we swallowed with consent and moved on. Little did we realize that we had been played.

I can go on and on to show how Kenyan artists are ignored as other African artistes come together to make a name for themselves. Someone is already wondering why I am ignoring Victoria Kimani who has worked with various Nigerian and Tanzanian artistes. Well I have an answer for you. Victoria Kimani has a totally different style of singing from that most Kenyan artistes employ.

She has actually adopted almost everything Nigerian. She is Nigerian herself. Look at the Prokoto she did with Diamond and Ommy Dimpoz. That was Nigerian. Then there is the Show. Nigerian. And her latest release she did yesterday. Purely Nigerian.

These are the things that will attract Davido, Mafikizolo, Waje, Tiwa Savage, Chameleone, Diamond, Radio and Weasel, Iyanya, name them to work with Kenyans.

We can no longer hide our heads in the sand. We must speak out. I read somewhere that Rabbit walked out of a show when a certain producer asked him why Kenyans found Nigerian music appealing than Kenyan music. Fact is, Rabbit did not want to hear this truth. He had been poked on the wound. With a hot nail. Bitter truth.

This and many more things explain why Kenyan artistes will always lag behind as others make it big in the show biz industry. They hate the truth.

The other day my fellow writer Philip Etemesi wrote an article about Khaligraph Jones and Octopizzo. He simply said Octopizzo needs to up his game. Do you know what happened? Well, Octopizzo tweeted Etemesi and called him sorts of names. Etemesi took it in his stride as a man and knew he had done his job. The rest was upon Octopizzo.

Recently in the CHOAMVA awards Diamond scooped three awards. I wondered in an article why Kenyans were not in the nomination list. They were invited to award Tiwa Savage, Diamond and the rest. And to sing for them.

These are clear indications that we need to wake up as a country. We need to avoid copy-pasting. We need to be creative. We need to work hard. Jaguar and Sauti Sol have done remix of their songs with Iyanya but that is not enough. A lot needs to be done.

Accept positive criticism. Do good music. Work hard. Be creative. Socialize. Reach out to others.

Kenyan media should also avoid too much foreign content. Form anchors to music, embrace local talent. Promote it.

That way, we can lure more foreigners to work with us.