KENYA: Artist Avril Comes to the Defense of Music Body MCSK Despite Recieving Just Sh. 4,000 as Royalties

The MCSK Elani drama went to a whole new level after many artists joined the conversation calling for transparency at the music copyright body.

READ:Fellow Artists and Celebrities React to the Elani MCSK Drama

Many seem to share the same remarks that Elani do, saying they feel like they are not getting their worth from the body.

But the question still remains, who really is to blame for the whole debacle.

Are MCSK really trying to steal from the artist? Or are the middlemen and media houses the real villains in this story?

However ‘Chokoza’ hit maker Avril seems to be the only one taking a different stand from other artists.

In one of her social media posts she says it is the artists who have no idea how to maximize their royalty collections.

“100% of broadcast royalties are paid to the artists by MCSK. However artists don't know that for you to maximize on royalty collections.... Your works must be played by a paying station.”

She goes on to say that TV and Radio stations are also to blame since they pay little amounts of money to MCSK.

~ “Secondly as per MCSK tariffs, broadcasters are supposed to submit a percentage of their broadcast royalties from advertising to MCSK and this would have beefed up the royalties to the artists. However, this is not the case and all of them have resulted to paying the bare minimum of 24,000 per month for National TV and 72,000 for a National radio station. Assuming about 40 radio stations pay and about 30 TV stations pay as well, where the bulk of the media houses fall under regional, thus their tariff is much lower. In total collection from broadcasters could result to a max of about 30 Million. Divide this amongst 10,000 members and you have about 3,000 shillings per artist for a whole year if a non scientific distribution is run. 3,000 shillings can barely afford a recording. Remember, MCSK distribution runs from July to June of the following year. Which also determines how much airplay will be considered for a distribution. E. G. If an artist releases a song in May and the close of the year is in June. The amount of airplay that will be considered is only for two months for the broadcast royalties in that distribution year. The rest will be paid the following distribution year. That is why an artist will say that their song has been receiving airplay but they only received very little in that year. In countries such as South Africa in which MCSK seconds in collection in Africa, the bulk of their collection comes from broadcast royalties where the media houses pay as much as 10% percent of their advertising revenues. In Kenya, MCSK tried it and media houses were up in arms thus they resulted in opting to pay the bare minimum. It is sad at this age and time when I see some artists fighting MCSK.” ~ Avril

And to show that she’s not an MCSK lackey, Avril went on to share the paycheck she got from the music copyright body, which showed she only received a meager Ksh. 4,000 for the whole year.

Check out her posts below;