Head of Mdundo A&R, Francis Muchina placing local music on the map

Kenya faces unique hurdles in music streaming, monitoring, representation, distribution and branding. The establishment of giant music companies such as Universal Music Group, Sony Music Group, Warner Music Group and Apple Inc, among others, in African countries including Ivory Coast, South Africa, Tanzania, Nigeria and Ghana, has elaborated the stability in their respective music industries and brought in the much desired foreign investment. The recent opening by Universal Music of a division of Def Jam Africa in Nigeria and South Africa reveals the lucrative opportunities in these precincts, which somewhat reduces Kenya’s music industry to just mere spectators. 

Stirring up the music industry ecosystems,local silicon savannah firms such as Mdundo, Sanaa Charts, Mookh, and Camille & Co step to offer local artistes respite and anchor a revolution in their metrics. Alongside them is native developing entertainment companies such as Black Market Africa and Callivan Creatives.

 The chronic non-transparency and pseudo royalty collection institutions and the systems in place currently to assist artistes earn monies has become a pity party for toiling artistes. “We need new age solutions like digital monitoring. No accountability; transparency and blatant disregard of the law is the order of the day. Joint collection has been a fight,” lamented singer Willy Paul

However, Mdundo Africa head of Artiste and Relations Francis Muchina says despite the lack of an administrative body to recognise and monitor music sales, Mdundo’s role is to bridge the gap through its data systems. “We do not have an equivalent of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to recognise album sales. However, at Mdundo, we award and recognise artists with downloads of above 100,000, 500,000 and one million. Recipients receive bronze, silver and gold plaques as a way of encouraging the creative,” he says

Muchina advises artist to reach a wider audience by partnering with a company like Mdundo which partners with other international distributors to grant the artist a bigger audience. The mdundo platform grants the artist a lot of allowance and cost free music to the listeners. Listners enjoy music on the 'freemium' while the artist receives the much due reward for their work. A marvelous 'win win'.