KENYAN ARTISTES COME UP WITH MUSICIANS BIG FOUR AGENDA

Local artistes have decided to work together to overcome their common challenges that have always ailed the music industry and made it lag behind compared to their counterparts in Tanzania, Uganda, Congo, Nigeria etc.

Local artistes who attended the MusicBig4 Agendas meeting

In a meeting that was convened on 25th September, 2018 by Rufftone, Ben Githae and Nonini, artistes in attendance lamented and cited how disadvantaged they were due to a constitution that had not been fair to steer growth in the local music industry. However, they were informed that the Music bill 2017 that has good things for the growth of the industry had been taken to the senate and first reading had already taken place. The convenors urged artistes to get ready to participate by bringing in their presentations when called upon at the time of public hearings. They observed that this effort would help revive the industry whose fortunes have been dwindling due to copyright laws that do not protect the local artistes. They have plans to petition His Excellency the President Hon. Uhuru to intervene and save the local music industry where artistes invest and work hard but never see the fruit of their sweat.

Artistes participating in the days deliberations

It was observed that it was not easy to penetrate the music industries in the above mentioned countries due to stringent policies put in place to lock out foreign artistes whereas our industry is open for them. The artistes observed that the success of artistes like Diamond Platinum, Chameleon  and Davido is due to the home-ground support that made them big in the social media before getting known beyond their countries. Kenyans were urged to be proud and support their artistes so that they may also outgrow Kenya and go beyond.

Airplay has been so skewed to an extent that foreign music dominates the airwaves making foreign artistes earn higher royalty incomes than their local counterparts. Artistes endeavor to petition the President to direct Communications Authority to enforce copyright in broadcasting and the local airplay quota of music content to 60% against foreign/international music content. They said that this would be a good start but cited that the percentage allocated for local music content in most of the continent ranged from 80% to 95%. 

Artistes agreed to bring on board all stakeholders who use music to work on ways that would help out the local artistes so that they can concentrate on creativity knowing that their work would yield and make them live a descent life.

Below are the Musicians Big4 Agenda on a post that was used for invitation;