TOPSHOPMEDIA.COM: can you elaborate?
GUEST: MCSK is a set up. There are two events that support my perception. The first one took place the same day I was in MCSK Kisumu office to collect my royalty payment before I was told the distribution date had expired. The lady made some few phone calls to the MCSK Director for Nyanza Mr. Tom Kodiyo who was in his club that morning. After her conversation with Mr Kodiyo over the phone, she said that Mr. Kodiyo could offer some advice. She gave me the directions to his club located along Kibos Rd, near Kondele Market. On arrival I found Mr. Kodiyo who looked like he had never slept for the last one week the way he dressed. We talked but never in his talk offered away on how I was going to get my money, he looked occupied with security of his position in the Society. After our conversation I just had to accept the bitter truth that I was never going to get my money today or anytime soon. I walked out of that club dejected and down trodden
The second event happened on October 31st 2009. There was an ad hidden in the dailies about the distribution. Most of us never new of such an event and to me at that time I never had a good reason to Buy a Newspaper that day so I missed that part but something extraordinary happened that day. There was power outage in my area which wasn’t normal. After along wait for power to return I decided to go down town to buy some things. On returning I saw an A1 manila paper written with felt pen saying something like “MCSK meeting” pinned on one side of the opening of ofafa Hall, Kisumu. I quickly alighted from the vehicle and rushed to see what was happening. When I got in I realized that it was the pay day. Distribution of royalties were talking place and the only people who knew about it are the only people who attended it.
TOPSHOPMEDIA.COM: Were you paid anything that day?
GUEST: Yes, after the norms and the reports were read. Names were called and each person who was there received KES10, 000 for 2009 public performance. No more, no less.
TOPSHOPMEDIA.COM: Word going round is that artists who get more airplay receive up to KES100, 000 per month?
GUEST: Do you believe that?
TOPSHOPMEDIA.COM: Tell us why you think that isn’t true?
GUEST: I didn’t say it isn’t true that some artists get that much per month. There are possibilities. If you do a simple arithmetic of multiplication and addition with some subtraction which doesn’t require high school algebraic expressions you will reach a dead end. A good example is if you take 100,000 paid to highest performing artists and multiply it by 12 months you get 1.2million shillings going to a single personality per year which is good reward for an artist. Complications begin to arise when you want to determine the number of artists receiving that kind of amount per month. There are about 4,000 registered members of the society. If you are going to pay 1.2million shillings each to about a hundred (100) members per year you will end up paying 1,200,000 x 100 = 120,000,000 against the yearly collection totaling 187million shillings. The 100 I used in this example is just 2.5% of the society’s registered members. What are you going to do with the remaining 97.5%? Note that MCSK has been spending 70% of the 187million on its operations and only the remaining 30% of the total amount is left for the selected few artists.
TOPSHOPMEDIA.COM: so the claim that artists earn up to 100,000 shillings per month is illogical?
GUEST: very illogical.
TOPSHOPMEDIA.COM: There have been cries and complaints from music users in Kenya of harassment, seizure of property and even unauthorized entry into private homes and businesses by MCSK officials. What solution can you offer our audience?
GUEST: the solution to collection and distribution of royalties does not lie with MCSK. They failed. And as I said earlier MCSK was a set up from the word go just like any other white elephant projects stalled around the country. I pray that the dignity of our courts be of importance to any one charged with the responsibility of guarding them. Kenyans are not beasts and should never be treated like such. About ten years ago there was a great urge and desire among Kenyans to see our own artists bring out the best in them just like any other foreign music we cherished. We hoped and thought that one day we will have great artists among us. There were even calls to give more airplay to our local music. The result was that Kenyans were more than ready to support local music industry at whatever cost and that was when individuals gathered into groups and created organizations like MCSK to take advantage of the situation. They passed laws and presented themselves as the solution to the authority of that time which gave them a go ahead nod. They began to terrorize premises and spending the income on themselves until there were cries of mismanagement of cash that they woke up from eating and started paying KES3, 000 per artist per year around the end of 2006. This too was paid selectively just like my case at MCSK offices in Kisumu that year.
TOPSHOPMEDIA.COM: What was the better way to involve the public into supporting the local music?
GUEST: the way it was done by these guys was unprofessional, unethical and uncivilized. They acted like an outlawed sect. they tried to limit the use of music instead of promoting the use of it. If asked to rate its performance, I could rate such society as worse than the outlawed Mungiki.
TOPSHOPMEDIA.COM: So how tell us, how did you expect it done? I mean how should the public been involved?
GUEST: as soon as the copyright act came into effect, the public support would have been won by simple television Ads and Radio Ads by whoever was responsible for the collection and distribution of royalties.
TOPSHOPMEDIA.COM: How should have that been done without money considering it was just beginning to dawn and not much had been collected from music users.
GUEST: Easy as talking to TV stations owners and FM station owners and asking them for the favor to air a well structured ad detailing why you should pay for the music you are using, what you should pay for and the amount you are supposed to pay for the type of the business you are running while giving TV and FM station owners immunity depending on the work. But they were afraid of that because they knew that anybody could calculate the amount of money they were getting from music users country wide. I believe that the annual return now exceeds 500 million shillings but due to irregularities we will never know where the rest of the money goes to.
TOPSHOPMEDIA.COM Thank you, Mr JEN I believe your grievances will be attended to by the people involved. Once again, thank you!!
GUEST: Thank you too!!
TOPSHOPMEDIA.COM there are many artists both upcoming and established who would want to collabo with you. What is your take on that?
GUEST: I welcome any one not only artists but anybody and everybody with positive attitude so that we can wholeheartedly give our talents for the work of God singing the praises of Him who called us.
TOPSHOPMEDIA.COM How can you be reached in case some one wants to contact you?
GUESTMy email is os_omondi at yahoo.com. I have now have a facebook fan page thanks to you. The url is facebook.com/jakora.music and lyrics can be found at Stephen-omondi-music.blogspot.com
GUESTMy music can be downloaded or listened at my blog Stephen-omondi-music.blogspot.com [which I thank topShopMedia for their support] and by clicking play link just below the copyright text on a given lyric page. You can simply download my music by right clicking the page while the music plays and choosing save as option.
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