Honestly speaking, the government hardly supports art. Until some individuals make it big, that’s when you see everyone bragging of how Kenya is talented. You can also hardly see an ambassador at a gig because they don’t support art.
President Uhuru Kenyatta helps Guido Migliozzi wear the 2019 Magical Kenya Open Golf Championship winner’s jacket after the Italian was crowned champion at the tournament .
Kenyan Musicians has slammed the government for allegedly not providing enough platforms and opportunities for those in the Arts sector.
They were led by Benga maestro Dan Aceda .
Artists don’t necessarily need handouts but open avenues where they can make money.
The Kenya Tourist Board has been put on the spot for enlisting a South African musical group to headline this year’s Kenya Open golf tournament that was held last weekend.
The 2019 Kenya Open Golf Championship, which was taking place at the Karen Country Club from Thursday, March 14 to the 17th, had South Africa’s Mafikizolo as the main act.
Magical Kenya -a taxpayer-funded corporation mandated to sell Kenya abroad- were the main sponsors of the event that was also backed by Absa (formerly Barclays Bank).
It is not clear who between Absa, which is a South African company, and Magical Kenya was responsible for arranging entertainment.
Kenyan musicians took to Twitter to air their frustrations to a government agency for booking South African artists to perform at a Kenyan event as the main acts instead of one of their own.
Artists like Anto Neosol even made a sarcastic tweet.
There’s need to acknowledge that our musicians or anyone in arts is doing something important. That can be a good reason why organisers of such a big event like Kenya Open cannot see the importance of having Kenya artists.
Most upcoming artists don’t know who to look up to. This is why they are looking up to international artists. Those artists who have already made it see upcoming ones as competition and will not support them. This is why it’s always the same people performing. You have to hustle very hard to make it and most give up along the way. Most that we call ‘celebs’ don’t even have the art of music. We are up against the world so we need more local content.
