Singer Willy Paul has taken to social media to share his wish and prayer for the Kenyan music Industry.
Through his Insta Stories, the Saldido records founder advised musicians to cut down on chasing clout and put effort in producing quality content.
“My prayer for the Kenyan music industry. More work less clout! Very soon you will remember these words,” he wrote.
The state of the Kenyan music industry has provoked a great online debate with numerous artistes pushing for their music to be given more prominence locally while others have lamented unfair treatment from promoters and fans.
Self-proclaimed ‘play Kenyan music’ ambassador, comedian Eric Omondi, has been at the forefront in fighting for local artistes to get more airplay.
Not too long ago Eric made his way to parliament to table the motion, ‘play 75% Kenyan’, a step he said was geared towards giving the youth an opportunity to better themselves.
However, according to singer Otile Brown, Kenyan artistes are not doing well outside the country due to language barrier and quality of music.
Speaking in a previous press briefing, the Samantha hit-maker stated that most artistes limit themselves by singing in local languages.
“People know the truth but they don’t want to talk about it. Ukweli ni kwamba ni Lugha. That’s the truth. The difference between our industry and the Nigerian Industry is the Language and we can’t compete with Nigerians on that. How many songs from East Africa have gone international? Or you can perform for a different crowd.
“So what is limiting us as Kenyan artistes is the language, if we want to be successful internationally we must compromise a bit on language, There is no other thing,” he said.
Using Khaligraph Jones and singer Bahati as an example, the Chaguo la Moyo crooner said only a few artistes are doing well for themselves and that is not a good show to the outside world.
“In all generations in the Kenyan music Industry, there is no generation that has been successful like this one. So you can’t bash people like that. People like Khaligraph are building houses, Bahati pale…the others could not do that, so you can’t just castigate people like that, it is not good. And we have to love our own because we are sending a very bad image out there.
“Do you even listen to my English songs or since you love my Swahili songs you get bored even before giving them a chance. The pen game, arrangement and melodies if given a chance I would take over the continent and even the world, that’s not a secret,” he added.
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