‘DON’T CONFUSE HYPE WITH BEING GLOBAL’ OTILE BROWN TELLS NICK MUTUMA

Award winning musician, Otile Brown has come out to defend himself after being subject to ridicule for saying Kenyan music isn’t competing internationally because artistes sing in Swahili. 

Taking it to his insta-stories, he said his intention wasn’t to downplay the importance of Swahili, “Some of y’all be acting like am downplaying Swahili. Lol! Swahili is my everything it made me who I am today. Jaribu kuelewa nacho maanisha kwanza kabla kubisha- wengi wana nia ya kushinda mjadala tu na sio kutafuta suluhu.”

To defend his argument, he stated his collaboration with Lexil is on top of the chats, “Don’t confuse hype with being global my friend. Go to a global platform like Spotify and see how a song like #bounce by Lexil ft me is doing, a song which some of y’all don’t even mess with that much it has even made Lexil msanii was juzi one of the most listened artist on Spotify from the east how? It’s the sound na kizungu kiasi kilicho tumika. Ila lazima ujue kukitumia and make it relatable to our people and the world or else you’ll sound like a wanna be coz our English so clean.”

The Dusuma hitmaker also called out actor Nick Mutuma for limiting artistes to the Swahili community, “Saw Nick Mutuma saying Swahili community is about 70 million and so we don’t need the world and am like why are we even having this conversation then. Why are y’all comparing us then coz if that’s the case then we’re doing just fine. Why talk ish like we ain’t doing enough.”

Adding that the Latin and French then are more advantaged since they’re a much bigger community, “Kumbuka kuna French community for French artist. Latin community for Latin artist which is one of the biggest community. Izo numbers unaona ni watu wao, wa nje wachache tu. What I mean is they might have a global hit once ila ni ngumu kuendeleza na lugha ya nyumbani. Nionyeshe aliyafatanisha hits na lugha ya nyumbani kisha nikuonyeshe “keyc msanii was juzi kaimba #mwatiti na #emiliano tu na yupo kimataifa zaidi. Wengi ni hit Moja ya kimataifa kisha basi.”

He urged people to engage in constructive conversation, “I rest my case. Don’t get it twisted I love, 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 kueekea Kenya lawama. If talking global then it’s the whole of east, we got work to do. Muachr ku deflect my country Kenya has taken so much blows it’s enough. If Kenya was a person ingekua inaugua depression.”