Which Kenyan Musician Would You Have Featured on Vevo?

There’s a limited crop of top musicians around the world with their music featured on the seemingly exclusive VEVO channel, available on YouTube in Kenya and other African countries, and a fewer range of artistes on the continent that can boast a dedicated channel on the site.

If you don’t have any idea what VEVO is, Wikipedia adequately describes it as:

“….a music video website. It is a joint venture (between 3 out of 4 of the ‘Big Four’ music labels in the World) Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Abu Dhabi Media with EMI licensing its content to the group without taking an ownership stake.”

Well, a few African musicians can boast about having VEVO channels, with a majority of those few either South African or Nigerian. The latest addition to the VEVO stable was D’Banj who was confirmed at the end of March 2012.

VEVO.com is however only available in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, though it had planned to have a worldwide launch this year, but failed to roll out citing licensing issues.

Does this mean then that music has to be of some consistent quality to be featured on VEVO. There’s no secret that Nigerian superstars are doing collabos with American artistes such as Akon and Snoop Dogg and this could be a contributing factor to their music earning placements on VEVO. The channel has millions of subscribers and thus would be a gold field for artistes looking to build their brand.

Advantages of being on VEVO include reaping greater revenue from your music as the advertising rates on the channel are of a greater premium. All that VEVO may require then of you would be a strong fan base adn reputable industry contacts.

The most important thing to note though would be that the industry is increasingly being driven by digital sales in comparison to say vinyl and CDs as has been the case for quite awhile. 

The service was launched officially on December 8, 2009.The videos on Vevo are syndicated across the web,with Google and Vevo sharing the advertising revenue.

Do you think there’s any Kenyan musician who should be featured on VEVO?