You know when you leave school filled with show into Kazi Kanisa charity work, for some- brilliant ideas for how you’re going to change thing. No worries though, she gets to keep the the world. How as a film student your TV intellectual property rights. shows could be easily pitched to broadcasters and even before the ink was dry on your The bullsh** does not end there. The same certificate, you were sure success was a thing happens in music, if you want a song given. The naiveté and ignorance that comes to play on the radio you have to grease a with youth is sometimes astounding. Trying few palms before the gatekeepers give you to get the right person at the stations to listen a chance. You’re not even trying to get paid to you was hard. I remember the gate guards royalties, your days of fighting CMOs for your asking me to leave DVDs with my pilot epi- money are still far off. All you want is your foot sodes with them. To this date, I have a sneaky in the door. feeling that they had a special bin behind their desks labelled “For fools with no friends in Many creatives in Kenya (and around the high places”. The producers I did manage to world) face constant barriers such as these get in touch with would instruct us to dumb ‘gatekeepers of content’. Getting your books down our content for Kenyan audiences”. “A on shelves, music on rotation in stations and phrase they use to this day with the same any spot on a local TV station can be lack of shame. daunting. Traditional media is controlled by cartels and if you don’t know the ‘right people’ A friend told me that she was asked to pay a shauri yako. Unless you’re like those people percentage of her budget to one of the ‘gods’ who walk past government offices and ten- who work in TV programming after her show ders fall on your head with the first deposit was commissioned by one of Kenya’s major already cleared then it can feel like you’re broadcasters. The %ge required amounted to screwed. whatever profit she stood to make, turning her Things are shifting though, Lil Nas x (yeah, that guy with the Satan shoes) started 50nd3k4 98 50nd3k4 98 50nd3k4 99