Kenyan artistes struggling to hit a million views online

Men lie, women lie, numbers don’t. As everyone tries to dominate the digital world, musicians the world over are slowly moving away from MTVs, BET, and even  local shows like The Beat, as the place to launch their music.

YouTube, the world’s biggest source of videos, is the new battlefront. Statistics released by Google show that the site gets a staggering four billion video views per day. Any wonder that every artiste hopes his videos will be watched by all fans and more!

But getting people to watch, even with four billion views a day, is a major struggle. Kenyan artistes don’t seem able to break this ceiling, unlike their Tanzanian and Nigerian counterparts.

It seems like a no-brainer for an artiste like Diamond and Alikiba to hit a million views just days after they upload their videos. Come to Kenya and this is not the case even for major brands like Sauti Sol.

There are many Kenyan hit songs that, based on their popularity, would be expected to smash the million-views ceiling, but they are lagging behind. One of the biggest songs in Kenya last year, Gudi Gudi by Everlast featuring Naiboi and Kristoff, is yet to get half a million views on YouTube.

You feel the frustration when you look at the “Most Liked” comment on the video by singer Anto Neosoul, who says: “This song should have 1M views”. Very many people agree. Compare Gudi Gudi, which was released in July 2016, to Muziki by Darassa from Tanzania, released in December, and you get the point. Muziki, which is now starting to hit in Kenya, is currently at 3.5 million views.

Other Kenyan hit songs that are struggling to hit the million mark include the monster hits Bazokizo by Collo featuring Bruz Newton, Bank Otuch remix by Vicmass Luodollar featuring Octopizzo, Welle Welle by Timmy T Dat, Uliza Kiatu by H_art The Band, and Taboo by Phy.

Compare these with Tanzanian club bangers like Kamatia by Navy Kenzo that has 2.5 million views, and the biggest song in East Africa to date, Zigo remix by AY featuring Diamond, which has more than eight million views.

Sauti Sol, who were crowned Best Group in Africa at the MAMAs and whom many believe are on the same level with Diamond and Alikiba, are doing well by Kenyan standards. But many people don’t understand why they don’t get as many hits.

COSTLY DATE

Kuliko Jana was a sensational hit. It is currently at 1.7 million views, four months after its release, while Sura Yako, probably the band’s biggest hit so far, has four million views four years later.

Not to rain on Kenyan artistes’ parade, we do have many artistes who have crossed the million-views mark. Mwema by Mercy Masika and Tam Tam by Willy Paul featuring Size 8 are some of Kenya’s biggest hits, but they are all below the next major mark — five million views. Rapper Nyashinski claims to be the first Kenyan rapper to cross the one-million mark after his video for Now You Know hit a million views and was followed by the lyric video for his latest offering, Mungu Pekee.

According to Socialbakers, Diamond Platinum’s YouTube channel is, on aggregate, the busiest in Tanzania, with 446,418 subscribers and 386 videos. His channel has a total uploaded video views of 179 million views, growing from 108 million views in the past six months.

In Kenya, Sauti Sol’s channel has around 89,506 subscribers and 111 uploaded videos. The channel has amassed 26 million views, up from 19 million views, over the past six months. Octopizzo’s channel has 74 videos, 12,335 subscribers and a total uploaded video views of four million, up from 3.3 million six months ago.

Nobody seems to know why Kenyan videos stagnate at a lower number than their neighbours’. Anto-Neosoul says the disparity is due to the high cost of data bundles.

“A four-minute video will consume a lot of bundles, so many people prefer to go on Facebook and Twitter rather than view a video on YouTube. Unfortunately, most of the young guys can’t afford to keep re-watching the videos,” he says.

But Google disputes this, stating that since 2013, Kenya is third when it comes to YouTube views growth — behind Senegal and South Africa. According to Dorothy Ooko, Google’s communications and public affairs manager for East and Francophone Africa, Kenyan artistes should understand how to use their YouTube channels to interact with fans and not just post videos.

But she believes that Kenyans have an eclectic taste when it comes to online videos. They will not just watch Kenyan videos like, say, Nigerians and Tanzanians, she says. “Kenyans love gospel music. You just need to search Mercy Masika, Willy Paul, Bahati, Christina Shusho, Ringtone, Gloria Muliro and the recent release of Willy Paul and Size 8 to confirm this,” she adds.

Regarding data cost, Ms Ooko says: “In sub-Saharan Africa, Kenya has the lowest costs for data, so the argument is inaccurate.”

Mercy Masika is one of the lucky few to play in the million-plus-views league with her songs Mwema (four million views) and Nikupendeze (2.6 million views).

“Truth be told, I don’t really know where those views come from. I just sing and leave the rest to God and my fans to decide. Mwema took a year to get to a million views and it has kept growing since then, while Nikupendeze took about five months to get there. I think it’s the type of songs that I do. I cater to a mature audience that can afford access to the Internet, whether in the office or at home,” she says.

From her experience performing across the country, she says songs that are frequently requested by young people at concerts have low YouTube views. She advises artistes who are struggling to get a million views to simply do good stuff and people will share and make it viral.

The other headache for local artistes was the revelation that when Kenyans are online, they will most probably watch Bongo and international songs.

According to YouTube Rewind, released late last year, the most watched music video in Kenya in 2016 was Salome by Tanzania’s Diamond and Rayvanny, followed by Rihanna and Drake’s Work. Diamond took the third spot for the song Bado, featuring Harmonize.

MORE THAN VIDEOS

The only Kenyan song on the list was Unconditionally Bae by Sauti Sol, featuring Tanzania star Alikiba, which ranked at number four. Other songs featured in the top 10 were Work From Home by American rapper Ty Dolla Sign and girl group Fifth Harmony, This Is What You Came For by Scottish record producer and singer Calvin Harris, Kwetu by Tanzania’s Rayvanny, Cheap Thrills by Australian singer Sia and Jamaican rapper Sean Paul, Pillow Talk by English songwriter and singer Zayn, and Ain’t Your Mama by American singer Jenniffer Lopez.

Many Kenyan artistes believe that musicians who have millions of views have to do so fraudulently by purchasing bots (software robots) to generate clicks to their videos. Here is how this works: You log into a website, pay money, usually Sh200 for 10,000 views, and within a few days your video has as many views as you can afford.

Rapper Khaligraph was accused of this after his video Micasa Sucasa hit the one-million mark, something he vehemently denied.

According to a YouTube spokesperson in Europe, Middle East and Africa, this is illegal and could lead to the blocking of an  account.

“We take abuse of our systems, such as attempts to artificially inflate video viewcounts, very seriously, and take action against known abusers, including termination of their YouTube accounts. YouTube continues to employ proprietary technology to prevent artificial inflation of a video’s viewcount by spam bots, malware and other means. As part of our long-standing effort to keep YouTube authentic, we periodically audit the views a video has received and validate the video’s view count, removing fraudulent views as new evidence comes to light.”

It really looks like Kenyan fans are online, but are not watching enough music videos from their fellow countrymen. Artistes do need to restrategise if they are to win this war.