Kenyan Musicians Are Paid Peanuts – MCSK Royalty Payments Reveals

The music industry is very enticing in the country and in general seeing as the number of upcoming Kenyan musicians is growing by the day. Everyone with the musical talent want to be stars but the shocking truth is that musicians in Kenya are taken as a joke by the Music Copyright Society of Kenya (MCSK) which pays them peanuts in royalties.

MCSK is suppose to help musicians get their hard earned returns from their songs by fighting piracy and keeping it at a bare minimum in the entertainment industry. So far, the board has been unsuccessful in doing that very job seeing as the returns in royalties are ridiculous. In fact, just two days ago, the MCSK board sent around 25 dollars to various Kenyan artists as royalties. If this was the only source of income for a Kenyan Musician, then we would have a lot of homeless hit makers in our midst.

Several musicians took to social media to complain about this, among them the famous Khaligraph Jones who shared that he no longer needed those MCSK provided peanuts and that he wants everyone in the country to be able to play his music regardless of the licence. Popular female musician Fena Gitu also commented saying that it was unfair that Khaligraph and her were earning the same. In her opinion, Khaligraph should earn way more as a legend in the industry

Other musicians who also spoke out against the injustice were Holy Dave, Nikita Kerring and rapper Wangeci. To add an accusatory note to the story, musician and producer King Kaka mentioned that he has his doubts whether the amount they were given was all that was collected by MCSK. The only artists who have not been seen complaining are Sauti Sol who were ranked as the most paid artists.