Here's Why Kenyans Will Not Win Continental Awards, It's Nothing To Do With Tyranny of Numbers

Piece by: Kwarula Otieno
Entertainment

Most of our local celebrities are always nominated for prestigious continental awards and most of the times they  up loosing.

So, who is to blame for this? Honestly, it's you, the government and myself.

Many might argue that it's because other countries like Nigeria dominate these awards because of their 173.6 million population and this might actually be very true and very wrong at the same time.

First of all, not all or even half of the people in Nigeria vote for their artistes and actors during awards, unlike Kenya where almost none votes when it comes to awards. I don't know if it's laziness or they just don't like our celebrities.

No, we actually like them; see the tweets, facebook post and reposts on Instagram urging our followers to vote for them. The truth is, even those who are asking their friends to vote, sometimes they themselves don't even open the voting website.

According to a study on music consumption amongst the youth in 5 different African countries, Kenyans are apparently the least consumers, where only 55% of Kenyans have interest in music, compared to our Tanzania counterparts where 94% of the youth between 15 to 24 love music.

Celebrities are always complaining that we don't write and talk about their new projects. To be honest, at the end of the day, the main reason why we are all working is to take something home, and that cannot happen without results. For example; if we write about artiste x releasing a new video, such an article will only be read by a maximum of 2000 guys, whereas if we write about Huddah's trip to Italy, guaranteed at least 15,000 people will click to see what she was doing there.

Is there any possibility that Kenyans will ever embrace their own?

In a generation where almost everyone can access the internet, it will be impossible to stop Kenyans from listening to Young Thug, Hardwell and Davido. So as some clever person once said; "if you can't beat them join them". How about we start thinking internationally, let the few Kenyans who will say that you are a wannabe talk, they won't help you.

Cross the borders, make connections, learn a thing or two then come back and put in work. Without that, your music will never cross the borders and no one will ever recognize you outside your country.

There's also no proper support from the government. By now there should be a state of the art music and film studios owned by the government. As much as I appreciate the work the Cabinet Secretary for Sports, Culture and the Arts in Kenya has done, I've also seen him going vocal about sports and the film industry. What is there for the musicians?

After solving the few problems I have highlighted above, I think we'll be ready to show the world what we got. Untill then;