Otile Brown: Why Nigerian musicians are popular than Kenyans
By Freya WanjikuA backlash on social media has led R&B singer Otile Brown to clarify his earlier sentiments on the Swahili language being the barrier to Kenyan musicians going global.
Otile Brown, born Jacob Obunga, had earlier suggested singing in Swahili was kind of a hindrance to the popularity of songs as the language is not spoken internationally.
In his Instagram stories, the Chaguo la moyo hitmaker said: “Some of y’all be acting like am downplaying Swahili. Lol! Swahili is my everything it made me who I am today….try to understand what I mean without being confrontational.”
Adding: “Don’t get it twisted I love, and respect Swahili and I believe in it and I will give more music in Swahili….and this conversation it’s for the entire east and central Africa, not Kenya alone you’ve been programmed kuwekea Kenya lawama (to blame Kenya)…if talking global then it’s the whole of east, we got to work to do.”
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The singer’s clarification came after renowned actor Nick Mutuma responded to his claims by suggesting the Swahili community has about 70 million hence we don’t need the world.
The Nabbayet hitmaker shot back saying, “why are we even having this conversation….why are y’all comparing us then cause if that’s the case then we’re doing just fine…”
Upon arrival from his USA tour, Otile in an interview with Mungai Eve, posed, “The difference between our industry and the Nigerian one is the language because how many songs from East Africa are international, and you can go perform in different crowds? Not many.”
He added that Kenyan artists were working hard and it was not fair to bash them since language was the only stumbling block saying that if they wanted to succeed, then they needed to tweak our language.
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