Strano minces no words about music industry

The Kenya Music Week ended last week. 10 years ago, it was formed to create a music industry that was professional, transparent and more profitable for the players.

Whether all this has happened remains in question. This year, they came up with ONGEA, the East African Music Summit with the same objective, but that cast the net wider to the larger East Africa.

Mike Strano, who has been spearheading this, first came to Kenya in 1998 with his degree in Agriculture, and worked for an agro-chemical company. Then he started a magazine - PHAT - and stayed behind.

We met in his office off Gitanga Road, a relic of a building with a raggedy garden.

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A few musicians have been murmuring about royalties. Claiming that they aren’t getting what’s due to them. Is that a problem that you find yourself saddled with now?

First of all, I don’t believe in problems, that word is not allowed in my vocabulary or in my office. We only look at challenges. And, yes, it is a challenge.

But it’s a challenge that is not unique to Kenya…it’s actually all over the world. It has been for years and it will continue to be fought for years.

I think Elani raised some legitimate issues in terms of transparency, in terms of reporting and things like that. And you will hear the same issues when you got to South Africa. This is one of the problems that we deal with in ONGEA, the EA Music Summit. We have a panel who will talk about compliance and monetization of intellectual property.

There is also an issue here, that no one is talking about, and we want to table it. Composers in Kenya should be earning 200 times what they are earning now…in Kenya, the tariffs only…for corporate it’s 5 ½ per cent.

In 2014, Sh122b was spent on broadcasters. Which means if you take 5 ½ per cent of that, Sh6.7B should have been paid to MCSK and should have been distributed to composers.

What is Kenyan music?

Kenyan music is music created in Kenya.

If you listen to South African music you will tell it’s from South Africa, same with Nigerian music. But what’s our sound?

I think you should ask a South African or a Nigerian…they probably can’t hear their own sound.

I’m sure they can. What’s our sound, according to you?

Our sound represents the diversity that Kenya is at the end of the day. And this has been a debate for a while. And quite honestly, my own personal view, is a lot of these debates waste a lot of time. Where we have a sound, whether we do not have a sound, at the end of the day what does the market like?

The consumers will tell us whether we are successful or not. The national market doesn’t really care what sort of sound you have, or the origin of the sound. They just want to listen to the music and to like it. It’s just like art. The two of us will look at one painting and we’ll have two different views of it.

It’s the market that is saying we don’t have a sound. That’s not coming from a void.

Which market?

People who consume music!

And that’s why we don’t listen to Kenyan music?

Because it’s not distinct! Okay, let’s put it this way; if you ask me what Kenyan song last moved me - apart from Kidum, who isn’t even ours - a song that I listened to and thought, I have to buy that off iTunes...I don’t remember one song. You have been doing this for a while, surely you must have some sort of passing commentary on this!

What I can give you is also the reaction of our principal publisher in South Africa, and our catalogue for EA is very diverse. And they like that diversity. It means that we can also offer our clients many different things.

You know, the same way people say Nigeria has a distinct sound…sometimes one of the biggest criticisms that comes up for the other regions is that all the music begins to sound the same. And yet they don’t say that about Kenyan music.

If you were given a magical wand, to sweep across this musical scene, what would you do? What’s the first thing you’d fix?

To have proper tariffs of royalty being paid, and 100 per cent compliance by broadcasters. Transparency, integrity with the royalty collection agencies – (Collections Management Organisations) CMOs, have systems in place.

We live in a digital age, it’s very easy to adopt technology to ensure compliance. There is no monitoring software that can monitor the broadcaster.

What’s your personal preference in music?

I listen to everything, and I think I have to in my job. Also you know ONGEA is East African, so I travel a lot across EA, there are some artistes that I really appreciate from Tanzania. In Kenya, I’m not being biased towards my clients, but Sauti Sol are packaged well and they know where they are going and they have drive.

In Uganda, we represent some artistes as well. We have clients in Ethiopia as well, their stations play 90 per cent of local music. They don’t care about international music.

Or maybe their laws don’t care for international music…

I think not. That was lifted, if I’m not wrong.

What’s the soundtrack of your life?

(Long pause) I don’t know if it represents where I am, but what I really enjoy is dancehall.

What’s been your biggest regret?

My biggest regret? (Pause) Probably not taking on opportunities a lot faster. I’ve learnt that when you get an idea, you need to move a lot faster. There might be some opportunities that have passed us by.

But sometimes some of that is also hindsight, you know. So when you get the experience, you are able to identify the opportunity faster as well.

Marriage, kids?

No. Not yet.

You’re a senior bachelor.

(Laughs) I’m just a bachelor, still too young to be called senior! I’m only 42.