Musician using explicit videos in the crazy hunt for hits

There is no question that music videos have evolved, drastically.

Gone are the days that all it took to shoot a video were a few lights strategically placed and the artiste wildly waving his arms around and pointing at the camera the entire song.

At least that was the protocol for shooting videos in the country, back when the music industry was very green and making music was barely recognised as a career.

Since then, the creativity, together with technology in the art of shooting the videos has skyrocketed immensely that some could be considered mini movies.

As competition among musicians gets tighter and stiffer, the need to outdo each other, in making videos as a way to gain more fans and a wider audience reach, has greatly increased.

MORE SEXUAL

It is no wonder then that as soon as an artiste releases a song fans immediately begin to anticipate the release of the video as well. Over time, artistes and all involved in shooting videos have pushed the envelope deeper into sexuality and away from content.

Early this year, Sauti Sol unleashed a steamy video to one of their hit songs "Nishike". In true Kenyan fashion, people criticised, praised and further criticised the video labelling it “Un-African” because of its sexual nature.

Never mind that we have seen worse on our televisions, more so Jamaican videos that raise eyebrows with dance moves that would make any acrobat green with envy.

But the more tongues wagged about Nishike’s video, the more Sauti Sol attracted attention, was trending on social media and the video amassed thousands of views.

The same went for Sanaipei Tande’s "Mfalme wa Mapenzi". Dubbed the female version of "Nishike", Sanaipei, just like Sauti Sol, took a risk and stepped out of her comfort zone in a major way both through her vocals and the intimate video.

INCREASED VIEWERSHIP
As much as these talented singers have been lauded for venturing into this somewhat unchartered territory, the appreciation does not extend to television.

With no airplay on television, these steamy videos have alternately become major hits on YouTube with "Nishike" amassing more than 750,000 views and "Mfalme wa Mapenzi" garnering almost 400,000 views.

As far as pushing the envelope goes, our Jamaican counterparts and dancehall artistes have raised the inappropriateness bar so high it would take so much effort to match them.

But we are slowly and surely headed there. Sexuality in music videos is not something that we just stumbled upon; it became widespread in the 1980’s with pop divas like Madonna at the forefront.

Back then the few people who could access networks like BET were treated to shows like Un-Cut at 3 in the morning, a program that aire

d uncensored music videos.

Uncensored videos of songs like "Right Thurr" by artistes such as Chingy, and other unprintable song titles by the likes of Ludacris, Jadakiss, XZIBIT, and 50 cent were the norm in the wee hours of the morning.

CHASING HITS
Up and coming rapper Blaqy is among the few Kenyan artistes who have caused ripples in the music industry with the video to his song "Show Me what Your Mama Gave You".

Believed to be his first hit single, the self explanatory song features a bevy of well endowed women truly shaking what their mothers gave them, their derrieres.

With only three lines in the whole song, Blaqy dedicates it to this subject - asking girls to show him, and us, their gifted behinds.

Truth be told, there is no accounting for taste in the video but Blaqy scored points for having a video that catapulted his three sentence song into a YouTube hit as far as the number of views are concerned.

No matter how many negative comments accompanied the video in the comments section on YouTube, the hoopla generated only served to increase the number of views.

And for little old Blaqy, over 78,000 hits was not too shabby for a song that plastered his name all over the blogs for weeks.

Rumours that Kenya Film Classification Board (KFCB) banned the Show Me video did not deter people from searching for it, quite the opposite. 

With the success of Show Me not being nearly enough, he went on to release something similar but this time titled Money Maker.

ANOTHER HIT

Blaqy was debatably clever enough to star socialite Risper Faith as his video vixen who consequently fuelled and helped in directing traffic to the Money Maker video.

Unfortunately for Risper, talk surrounding the video was about her body as she was fat-shamed not only by people on social media but Blaqy as well who pointed out that she needs to hit the gym.

He further added that Risper needs to seek advice from popular socialite Vera Sidika on products that could help remove marks from her body.

Fuelled by the “success” of his first video, Blaqy borrowed from the same script and unleashed another distasteful visual that has a lot of twerking and showing off of the derriere in very limited clothing, Blaqy once again managed to accumulate over 85,000 hits.

If artistes, especially Kenyan musicians are looking for the shock factor by producing overtly sexual videos then they might be a little late as Jamaican music sensations like Konshens already beat them to the punch.

But because the videos are by Kenyans may perhaps be the reason that puts creases on our brows.

Yet at the end of the day Blaqy’s goal was achieved, we watched his videos, we talked about them and disgusted or not, he got the views.

Today, you do not have to stay up ridiculously late to watch videos like Nicki Minaj’s Anaconda which, in its first week of release, drew 76 million views thanks to her scanty wardrobe and butt-jiggling skills.

RAUNCHY VIDEOS
Artistes and other wanna-be individuals looking for attention have realized that the raunchier the videos, the more attention they gain and the higher the number of hits added alongside their productions. 

And for some reason, majorly our curiosity, we cannot stop watching them. A video like Rajayjay’s  Pombe Bangi, which in no way qualifies as a song, was undoubtedly made to be controversial and not only for “fun” as it suggests, but just to see how many people would click and watch it on YouTube.

Rajayjay clearly understands that controversy will always make people stop and listen, in his case watch. In an interview he stated; “The number of views will be my judge, shall we wait and see?” 

The rapper said he resulted to extreme measures as it is hard to break into the industry and while we don’t know if people watching his video amounts to him being a success, his plan worked.

And like the curious lot we are, we helped push the video to an amazing 226,712 views and counting. He made his point.

That sex sells is nothing new. Taste along with the idea of leaving something to the imagination has been cast aside: still, sexy is in the eyes of the beholder and what may be sexy to one person may be considered vulgar to another.

As we, particularly artistes continue to enjoy the freedom of expression, it will be interesting to watch who gets their lines mixed up between sexy and steamy and trashy and tacky in their endeavour to search for hits.