A letter to Uhuru Kenyatta the President of the Republic of Kenya as received by the Office of the President on 4th December 2015 Cont.

2. Secondly, Radio stations and Televisions are our major consumers and partners but they are not doing enough to grow the music industry. They are to the contrary killing our industry by playing so much of foreign music especially from Jamaica, America, England, Spain, Nigeria and Tanzania while Kenyan music does not receive such attention in these countries. This has created a major imbalance of trade thus we are losing billions of shillings for importing so much music and exporting nothing at all in the said industry. Mr. President, The media has to stop playing foreign music and play Kenyan music because our Collecting Management Organizations (CMOs) are obliged to pay royalties for that foreign music played to these countries while we get nothing from them. The Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Information Communication and Technology needs to ensure that radio stations and televisions play at least 70% Kenyan music and revoke licenses of those who will defy because the allegations they make that Kenya does not have such magnitude of content is false and misleading. I wish to confirm to you, Mr. President that Kenya has enough content in music to play in this radio stations and televisions for even a whole month without repeating the content. In fact, over to 90% of Kenyan works are never played in radio stations and televisions. Such works are often labeled as studio hits while most artistes choose to use other alternative available channels to reach their fans in different markets which contributes to a big loss of royalties simply because the industry is full of cartels that have put it under siege. They decide who to play, who not to play, how long to play and when to play. Such cartels need to be crushed for the music industry to perform. Mr. President, I do not find any reason as to why musicians should invest so much time and money in composing, rehearsing, recording and imaging their music, and then still pay a bribe to someone who receives a huge salary, from a company that should be paying musicians for using my intellectual works. This is corruption that has to be stopped and every musician given an equal opportunity. Kenyan music industry is not made of the ten or twenty musicians who are seen every day on television; it’s made of thousands and thousands of hardworking, dedicated and talented musicians. The government has a major role in growing this industry and there is great need to take stringent measures to make the music industry productive and one of them is enforcing airplay while ensuring that music monitoring systems are transparent, efficient and free from manipulation. We will even appreciate it more if your government came up with a dedicated channel to promote Kenyan music home and abroad.

3. Mr. President, there exists hundreds of musicians unions across the country who have not been registered legally. In fact some of them have resulted to registering as youth groups, self-help groups or even merry go rounds for lack of any better legal framework to register musician unions. The Cabinet Secretary - Ministry of Sports, Culture and The Arts has to take responsibility and strengthen the industry through musicians unions. This might be the only solution to some of the visible problems facing the music industry. These challenges cut across the arts sector and if given attention and solutions, it will help grow other related industries and sectors. The Kenyan arts sector is ripe and ready to compete with other leading world class arts sectors like in the United States, Vietnam, China, Germany, Spain, United Kingdom, Nigeria and South Africa and the Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Industrialization and Enterprise Development has to ensure that it meets the expectations of investors.