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| Shaddyyoko, Kenyan Artist |
In Kenya things are different because the Media houses here promote foreign as the locals play second fiddle. Our presenters and Djays believe in foreign stuff hence obvious bias. The same trend was there in the early 90s until some few presenters believed in our own. Things improved to an extent that our local artists became popular in East Africa and even started doing shows abroad. We now see the tide changing as our Radio and TV stations are now leaning towards Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa among others. It is even forcing Kenyan artists to keep aping Nigeria in every new release in order to catch the Djay's ear. This is not fair to artists who would have wanted to try their creativity and do stuff that is authentically Kenyan. Instead of our DJs, VDJs and presenters researching to get the new hit songs from all over the country they have decided to use airplay as a tool of making money. You can do very quality music but when you take it to the media houses they don't play. They only play when they are given some bribe and only for a short period hence the promotion ends up not effective. They will sit on the CD or DVD so that it is not downloaded in the system for circulation. By doing so no any other presenter can access the music. They are the only ones who can play when they are given some token.
It is sad that our music industry has been negatively affected by the very people who are supposed to have promoted it to prosperity. The government has to come in and protect our artists like it is done in other countries. Some quota rules on airplay should be implemented so that more airtime is given to local artists unlike it is today. Artists should come together and have a strong group that will lobby for local artists' rights.
