I like listening to rappers who are coming up and just seeing when you listen to rappers with hunger and they still want to prove themselves, it's just fresh. It's it's nice like a lemon. It's like a lemon squeeze over a fish finger. You heard it here first. It's a lemon squeeze over a fish finger. Finger, Yeah. So anyway.
The Yo, what's up and welcome to episode 79 of the 30% podcast, also known as the greatest podcast in the land, hosted by yours truly, AFA Mephina and my amazing Co host Sam Sam what's up? What's going on? Hello. Hello yo, if you want to follow Sam, you can follow him on his own personal Instagram account at Ari is late to the party. AA. RE AA RE is late to the party. You can follow me at under score AFA Mephina.
You can follow the podcast on social media at the 30% pod on Instagram on X on threads on TikTok and LinkedIn. If you're trying to link and build, you can also stream this podcast on your preferred streaming platforms, which include YouTube, YouTube Music, Spotify and Apple podcast. Rest in peace to Google Podcast. And for that, all you need to do is type in the magic letters, the 30% podcast. That's three zero, 30% podcast. Sam, what's up? How you been? How's your week?
This this week, I realized that people actually do listen to the podcast on Google like the, the I was talking to someone like we, we listened to I listened to it on Google podcast and I was like, but it's, it's dying. It's dying. And so I don't know whether whether your podcast is going to be OK. And I'm like, we'll be OK. They're just moving to YouTube Music because. Yeah. What's up? I am doing. What's up? I'm doing good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm chilling. I am.
What did you get up to, man? What did I do this week? I This week was mostly just work. So just working. Tuesday I got to go. I went down to Gecko Cafe. Martin guess I was playing. I wanted to go see that. I planned to go with some people, but they bailed. You know yourselves. They Christianed. You. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, that was horrible. Very witty. Very witty. No, it was witty, but it was horrible. Anyway, I hope it hasn't gone over our listeners heads.
So I did that. It was a good show, got there early and still struggled. I, I get anxiety when I go for shows just because I really, I just, it's not that I want to get a good place to sit. I don't care because I'm not going there to look at the people performing. I'm going there to listen to them perform, but just getting seats. Sometimes you go there and Gecko Cafe tends to be like a date spot.
So there's a lot of people with their, with their loved ones and significant others and the people they're cheating with and all of them and they're all. Cuddled. Wait, what? All all cuddled up and and just being lovey dovey staring into each other's eyes like yo you guys are not even listening to Matt. Matt is playing. Can we listen to Matt please? So it was cool. I found a place to sit by myself in the centre, being looked at by everyone, which is always
awkward, but I made it through. I didn't stay for the whole show, didn't want to get rained on. How long was the show? I don't know how long it was. I stayed maybe an hour and a half. So I want to say maybe two hours, 2 hours to 2 1/2 hours. I don't think it was that long. But yeah, I left before it ended. So yeah, that was dope. That was really cool. I don't remember what I did. It was just errands. That was the weekend working got rained on. That was fun.
Yeah, that'll be. I was outside yesterday, which was fun also. Yeah, we're here. Very interesting life I have. What about you, man? Well. We here man my week. My week was pretty low key. Obviously I was unwell the last podcast, so I have been recovering so I'm feeling better now. My week was kind of dominated by the release, so we were building up to a release with my artist, Foster Nix. We dropped a song, a single called Prism, which came out last Friday.
Check that out. I produced that well, we Co produced it. This was when I was out in New York. It's really one of my favorite songs I've done with Foster to date, and the reception has been good, man. He's been showing me like a few messages he's been getting and stuff like that, and it's really very inspiring to see that people actually listen to the music. So yo if you want to listen to Prism. It's a banger too, and I'm not just saying, I'm not just saying it's because I know the guys,
but that's. My podcast, right? You actually mean that, Sam? Sam, do you really mean that? That's what I actually do. That's my joint. This is my kind of music. Thank you. Listening to to, to, to pop. Pop is. Fun. Oh yeah, it's it's it's poppy, it's house it's but it's still it's still in line with what you expect from Foster kind of and yeah, it's it's available on all streaming platforms aside from the release. Yeah, that's that's kind of been how my my week has kind of
played out. So just kind of also figuring out, brah, you know, figuring out the marketing aspect. Oh gosh, it's horrible. It's so horrible. Shout out, hey, shout out to everyone who does marketing and you guys are just you guys are the ones. Listen, marketing is not bad if you have a budget. If you have like a big budget at your at your disposal, then it's cool. If you have a limited budget, now you have to start getting creative.
And that's where things now become really like like intense in terms of like just thinking about what to do, you know what I mean? You see, if you have, if you have a big budget, then you're like, I just spend this on influencers, spend this on, on social media marketing, you know what I mean? It's so easy, like spend this on, on shooting a visual. If you, if you have, if you have a budget at your disposal, it's cool if you don't. You have to get creative. Man, now you have to, but you
don't. Really have to get creative though. All you need to do is just hop on Tiktok and just copy. Just copy what you do, what you see, people. Do you think that's it's, trust me, bro, I've been on Tiktok this whole week, Sam. It's not as easy as you think. Going viral is not easy. Like, OK, it's easy and it's not. But I don't know if that makes sense, but it makes sense to me. There's a lot that goes on to posting on Tiktok. You have to understand, you have to understand search engine
optimization. So you have to know like what like. And then also you have to be chronic. You have to be chronically online to know what's trending at the time. And you also have to realise if you're trying to push your music on Tiktok, you have to do it in such a way that it doesn't seem like you're pushing your music on Tiktok because once it seems like that's what you're doing, nobody wants to pay attention. So how do you do that without actually having?
Enough. Wait, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, That's that's annoying. So we have to appear to be inorganic, appear to be organic while being in, oh man, yeah, the Internet. Essentially, that's the game. That's the game. And it's so annoying. Like just listen to my music because it's good, not because like I've made a fancy Tiktok. So, so now you have to figure out what you have at your disposal now if you're artist or if you're an artist who's really happy to be on Tiktok and and
show yourself a lot. Like the artists I follow who like are on Tiktok all the time before the song drops. They're previewing it every day. They're making funny Tiktoks, They're doing content, They're hopping on other people's sounds. That's great. Now, if that's not who you are, Yep, it's a bit hard to like, figure out. Yeah. And like, for me, for for me in my example, Foster isn't really like the person to be on Tiktok all the time.
So we have to figure out tasteful ways for him to do so or other ways for for us to like exist on Tiktok. Listen, if you guys want to hear more about me talking about TikTok marketing, as far as I have discovered or uncovered it, you just need to subscribe to my Patreon. I'm charging. You have no Patreon what are you talking about? Afrim doesn't have a page yet. He's just he's trying to get money from you, man, being an ATP. But yeah, anyway, so that's
that's a whole different world. Maybe I can talk about it like in another podcast. Yeah, it's pretty interesting. Yeah. And going viral. Finding out how to do it sounds, yeah. Sorry I cut you off now I'm just saying going viral isn't as glorious. It's not, yeah, it's not fun. It's not fun work. It's not fun. It's not very easy when you create that joint work. It's so easy, so easy, man. But like I've just been learning how to edit videos and stuff like that.
And honestly, I, I, I don't have it in me. I don't know if I have it in me to keep on doing this edits and stuff like that. Bro I and I, it's fun. It's just like, bro, I like the music, man. I'm not, I'm not supposed to be here like, but that's what the music industry is today anyway. So Speaking of music industry, this is a music industry podcast where we review things that happened in the Kenyan music industry. So Sam, what? What was happening in the Kenyan
music industry this week? There was not much that happened this week. Like I was online looking, searching like apart from, OK, so there's two people might go online and say, oh, but this happened in the music industry. There's, there's, there's a difference between gossip and, and just like sensationalized news and people talking about who they've broken up with and artists, you know.
And then there's like news that actually has to do with the music industry and it's building or destroying or the fabrics, the fabrics of the music industry, things that have to do with that. And those that kind of news is not very fun. It's often boring, except when it's MCS case shenanigans and a few other things. So you have to really look sometimes. This week was. Well, I did see an interesting article. So I saw.
I saw. Apparently Otile was on a platform talking about how there are no international acts out of East Africa. So essentially he said, he claimed that there are no international artists in the East African region. And he was like, you know, there's really no one out here who I can consider an international act, he said. An international title is something we have to fight for because right now the industry
is stuck. Let nobody tell you that there is an international artist in East Africa. We are all on the ceiling. There is no international artist, so a few people were not happy on online obviously for for him saying this, including KRG the Don who apparently wants to run for parliament. Oh, it really? Yeah. Oh. Man, so, so some people said, OK, how about Saudi soul, man? You know Saudi soul are pretty international, right?
Yeah, And obviously when you say Saudi soul, a lot of people kind of point to BN as this like, I don't know, it's kind of like the leader at this point. And so BN kind of says, yo, leave me out of this. Like I don't want to be involved in this debate. He goes on record saying I really don't care if I go international or not, it's not my business. Let people do their work.
And if it's and if and if it's about who is going to take Kenyan music to the international level, please leave me out of it. Let everyone carry their own cross. He also says I was born to make music and I will do it till I die. Whether I become an international artist or not, that's not my problem. That's up to you in the the public is who is he's saying by you. And he says I sing because it makes me happy. I sing because I love to express myself. And that's what's important to me.
And I want to say that I think he responded to this perfectly. That's exactly how you should respond. Now, does BN want to be international? Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah of. Course he wants to be international. Like cup bells are ringing. I'm just like, hey, whoa, whoa. Big especially. It says like, it's up to you. It's not up to the fans, bro. You're the one who is. No, no. You're building. Obviously we know BN. Obviously we know BN is doing everything in he's.
Just tired. He doesn't want to. Become an international it's. Just it doesn't. Want to be talking about? It's just like it's so corny to be in the blogs that you're trying to like go back and forth with like some guys over, oh, are you international or not? Like that's corny. So you have to shut that down and say, yeah, I love singing, I'm doing my own thing, Whatever you guys want to say. You said I think the way he approached that is, is fire. What do you think, Sam?
Do you think there are any international acts from? Easter, do we have? OK, now here's where we start. We start getting a little bit serious. Do we have international? I think we, yes, we have international acts currently, but I think. Like diamond are. We talking about the whole of East Africa or Kenya? Just Kenya. Well, East Africa. What are the biggest names like Diamond? There's Harmonize. Diamond Harmonize. Who else is from there? Diamond Harmonize. Saudi Soul is the biggest name
here. Yeah, is that? It I'm not OK, let's talk about it. Let's talk about it. Yes, please, please. I don't want to get in trouble again with those guys. We love you, Kenya. Kenya, we currently have BN who desperately doesn't want to engage in this, but he's actually currently leading that. Probably we have some of the the RMB new RMB ladies we do. We do. I mean you'd consider you'll consider Xenia international right to an extension? Would I consider Zinnia an
international act? That's a great question. Do I? Yeah. She does appeal to like the international market, that's for sure. Yeah, well. What is? What is an international? Market, yeah, she does show out there. OK, go ahead. She works, she works with producers and engineers and stuff from out there also. So I mean, that would fall into the category of an international
act, I would say. Well, it depends on how you look at Internet. So for me, OK, for me, when I international act, well, yeah, Pink Panthers is an international act for sure because like her music is wide reaching. Like they they listen to her in Asia, they listen to her in Africa, they listen to her in Australia, they listen to her in. That was a joke, by the way. That was a joke. Yeah, I really want to ride with this. I I ride for my girl. I know.
Like I ride for pink patras man trust me. But like for me, when I hear the term international act, I feel like I also equated to success to a, to a, to a level. Now, I'm not saying like the example that you gave that Zia isn't successful. I feel like she's also still growing. So does she have the potential to be an international act? 100%? I think she is on the way to being an international act. Would I say she's an international act now? Maybe not not yet. I don't know if I make sense.
Am I writing this? I feel like she's I. Feel like success for me won't be, I think. I think success is success matures at the different stages you are. So you could be like a small artist, but then you could have success as a small artist because for you to be a big artist, you have to be successful at being a small artist. So I feel like if, if, if we, we break that whole international act down into small pieces and applied to wherever they are,
maybe we could find out. Like for Zinnia, I just feel like she's, she's out there, right? She's out there. She's doing a lot of music. She's she's, she has little successes outside shows and by podcasts and stuff like that. So she's successful, even if it's not the grand international act Billboard to what do you call it, Marquitos and all that business. But she does have a little bit of success and other actors. But that's why I was saying, yeah, OK, so that's what I'm
saying. Like you see from your argument, that makes sense if you're breaking down the the term international act and then like applying it to whatever stage. And yes, yes, in. Their career, that's what I'm saying for, but for me, when I hear the term international act, I thinking big. Like like I'm thinking big. I'm thinking you're going on tours, you're doing this and that. So like, yes, your argument
makes sense. But for me, when I hear the term international act, that's what that's what I think about. So what level would you have to be for the, for you to consider them successful? Then let's let's, let's go, let's go through this. Then what do you think are the factors that go into becoming an international act? From my perspective, I think the first factor that really goes into it is PR. Now I think your PR needs to be really, really, really far reaching.
So like you look at OK, shout out to Ira Star. We talk about Ira star a lot. My dad listens to this podcast and he says you guys only talk about a few names, Ira Star, Bien Nyashinsky, who else? Like you said, those are names always mentioned on the podcast. I know doing. Our best? Here call down. Thank you though we take your, we take, we appreciate the
feedback. So, so you look at Ira Star and This is why I'm saying like for me when I, when I hear the term international act, my, my instinct is to kind of like go more towards the OK, you're like doing bigger things. So you look at Ira Star in terms of PR, like I feel like they have been doing massive PR for her like the whole year. Like ever since commas came out, like she's been on an insane PR Comma, comma, commas, commas, commas anyway. You've seen her on like for me, I don't know why.
She's been everywhere, bro, She's been everywhere. She's been like, like you've seen, OK, you've seen her on and this is also kind of like marketing, but you saw her in Paris Fashion Week. We talked about that, right? We've seen her, we've seen her on. I saw her on the on Kiss Fresh with Henry and Shut at Henry if you're ever listening to this podcast. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I love no Henry. Listen, listen. I'm a fan of Henry. 'S yeah, I know you're a fan. Listen, I'm a fan.
You're a fan? Yeah, definitely a fan. Just. Massive fan. I'm a massive fan of Henry. Henry. Whenever I see people on Henry's on Henry's show, I'm like, you're like, they're actually because she like anybody who's anybody goes on that show at one point in the music industry, man, she's been with Thames, she's been with Tyler, she's been with everyone. Like everyone goes into that show. And and and obviously Ira Star
was on that show. And I'm just like, yeah, you can see they're spending money on the on the with the PR budget putting her with these people in this like positions where like you can see her face Thames, for example, We've seen Thames on the chicken shop date with Amelia. There's like a genre of. Of. Of of shows that are not necessarily radio but are like artist friendly. But yeah, so it's that kind.
Of thing like these, these, I know, I know this sounds like trivial, but like these are some of those things that kind of put you in the international conversation. You see IRA with Rihanna. You see IRA in studio with Chris Martin from Coldplay. You see her in studio. She even mentioned she was in studio with Jaden Smith. Now that's a wild one. I know that. Like it's weird. And for me, I never used to get this. I I never used to get it.
I was like, I used to see celebrities at then studio together or something. Or like a celebrity is front row of of the of an of a basketball game. Yeah, or they're like in the NFL then the box NFL. Yeah, yeah, it's there's a big deal or then Fashion Week or they've gone for the Met Gala or something like that. I used to see these things and I never used to draw any correlation. I was just like, OK, this is a, this is a celebrity doing. Science to start doing the
science. But once you start doing the science and you realize, oh, shit, all this is just like coming up, like it's building up to like the product, which is the music. Like you see now she's released music. Oh, you think listen, you think Don Jazzy's spending a bag for Ira Star to go to Paris just for her to go to Paris for the music. Have those looks. No all this put all.
This is above the music, so when music drops, all those ice hopefully translate into plays, and this place translate into money, and that money translate into getting your investment back. Recouped back into the into the label. Yeah, because unfortunately human beings are sheep. And I see Ira Styles with Rihanna, I see Ira Styes in studio with Jayden, I see she's in studio with Chris Martin. I'm going to be like, wait, that puts that raises my perception of.
Yeah, it pulls. Yeah, it pulls. I feel like it just pulls them up from the level. And just like, like when we saw Rahma again, Rahma is the other example because Donjazzi, Donjazzi just be, he's, he's doing some work over there and he's, we started seeing Rahma with standing with people like Omarion and them and just like just very outlandish American artists.
It's just like it's, and for some reason it's, I mean, when you say international, a lot of it, it's the, a big chunk of the cake is America because that's where the industry is like. Yeah, we don't see and partly. Europe. Yes, partly, Very, very small. Partly, but partly.
Anyway, sorry, Continue. And that's why I was saying like, like all these things, they play a role and you kind of establishing that international status because like people are having conversations about you even outside of your country. And like these people have PR budgets. Sam, I know you are telling me this, we can't really disclose this on the podcast, but you are telling me of a very famous or well, he's a, he's APR guru in the country.
And he was showing you like APR plan for like a like an artist in Nigeria. And it's just like, listen, like these guys have PR plan to be to be for, for Kenya. Like you have APR plan for Kenya? PR plan for regions. You know what I mean? For here there's there's one, for South Africa there's one and there's different people running that and then there's like a head PR guy probably where the artist is like it's a whole machine to get someone in front of your face.
It's crazy. It's so much work. So for me, PR is one of them. Marketing kind of goes hand in hand. Like like I said, putting put putting you in with putting terms with Amelia putting you on the front row, putting you in Fashion Week. That's also marketing. Like all that just kind of plays a role into like you, yeah, into you selling albums and moving units and and another thing. I was actually about to get into another one because I think you test on it, you test on it a
bit. Let's get into. That you test on it a bit with the earlier talking about the music and then now talk about albums and all that stuff. So it sounds very trivial obviously, because it's like, OK, this is a musician, so like the music is. But then for you to be an international artist, you do have to make music that in some way or package the music in a way that it will appeal to an international audience. If you're making music that's hyperlocal.
If it's not, now this gets technical because we have like bands who are who make like traditional music and stuff, but it still appeals to the to the local, I mean, appeals to the international audience because they are selling like their culture or selling something like that. So there's something that there's a way they've packaged it. So it's how you package your music. You can't make music.
That's OK, sorry. There's the different things that are involved within that, how the music sounds and the type, the type of collaborations you, you get on the track, right? The features and yeah, both features meaning both the production and production, right? And things like that. And then just how you present the art, your music videos, your your album art sometimes might play into that, maybe not as much, but it's stuff like that. So just.
I mean, just to sorry, so just to add on to that, like you see like Tyler releasing the video with Ghana, right? And he saw the whole thing about them working together and all that type of stuff. Like that's what makes you feel like, OK, she's an international act. Like OK, you'll see her with all these like, and production wise as well. Like you look at an album, you see who's in the credits, man. Like international producers, like your song has been touched by so many.
Like different, like, you know, names. Yeah, like when you see again, bring it back to Iris. Style in the industries. Bring it back to Iris style. We saw in as part of her roll out, which has been happening for for a minute now. She got on a song with Calvin Harris. Was it Calvin Harris? Calvin Harris and a little Dirk. I think she got on a song with yeah, she dropped a single with Raul Alejandro.
I think that's his name or, or, or man, I'm butchering his name and and Russian, Latin America, you know, and she's so it's more there's, there's a there's a, a real effort to get features that expand your audience. And if you look at her album. I mean she. Yeah, yeah, if you look at her album, her album, go ahead, sorry, I don't think that was the point you're trying to make. But if you look at her album the the. It it was.
It was the album she just released that song, the the one with the Latin America collaboration. I mean, Latin America features is the highest streaming with like by a by a mile, right. So that's like a that's a that's an effort to do that. We see Rema actually, no, Rema is Rema is a different story. But but even before we go to Rama, like even on that same album, I mean, you, you see this Anita as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Coco Jones she's also collabed
with. Givian, Yeah. Like bro this? Is a recognizable name. She's out here, like, right? Yeah. So that's part of it all. All that is that part of it. Listen. Yeah. I just want to say this, I want to put the caveat here. Are we saying that this is what you need to do as an artist? No. And we're not saying this is, I'm just saying this is kind of like just what gives that perception of you being an international artist. You can be an international artist without relying on these
things. But I feel like for that to happen a lot of different, a lot of this might even get us into the luck conversation. Well, not luck, but like you could go viral and become an international artist like Sophie Anzhao. I think Sophie Anzhao is actually an international. You can say she's an international acting. That's an interesting one. That's an interesting one. Because she went super, super viral. Like everyone was talking about her. She was popping on TikTok like
every everybody. But would you consider someone an international artist of one song? Because that was one song that really put. Out, I mean, if, but if your name is recognizable internationally, then yes, I I would like you. You can be a one hit wonder and and then become international. It's happened. That's true. So I feel like her like and then obviously now, no. But even with the with the remixes that have come out of like the major laser and everything. OK, that makes sense. Yeah.
Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, but you see, I feel like Sofia and Zao's scenario is a very, very, very Unicorn. Extremely rare like that happened that that's a Unicorn, bro. Even the way that whole song came about and went viral, it's so it's so it doesn't happen it. Does not happen. You can try and recreate. You can try and recreate what that happened. You can't. Recreate. It happens a lot in producer sense for like that in real life. Yeah, in my head, yeah.
But like, is it going to happen in your? Life. No. So we're kind of telling you how it typically tends to. Happen. Like there, obviously there are examples outside of what we are saying, but we're just kind of looking at what typically tends to happen or how the industry, yeah, how the industry goes about manufacturing international. International. Yeah, that's music. What's what's what's another? I was thinking also tours like now in.
I mean, obviously to be an international act, you have to tour. Internationally. Tour internationally. Makes sense? I mean, duh. So again, looking at IRA stuff, of course, like she's touring with Chris Brown, which interesting choice you made there. But I mean, it puts us, it puts her in front of like an international for sure audience considering IRA stars from Nigeria, right? We saw the the Madaraka
festival. I mean, that would put like those names that were supposed to be there in the international conversation, especially if they were able to like draw an international audience. But you see, The thing is, the thing about like the thing about touring internationally, what am I trying to articulate here? I feel like there's a difference between Mother Raka Festival and I will start touring with Chris Brown because I will start touring with Chris Brown.
The audience is primarily Chris Brown's audience, which is an American audience. Now. Mother Raka Festival appeals to the diaspora, which is in America. I mean, that's not really. Like, yes, there's going to be a few like people there who are like American or just from everywhere else, but mostly you're kind of like performing. Do you get what I'm trying to say? You're performing 2. I mean, we don't people who I get what you're saying.
I get what you're saying. We don't know what the Madaraka festival goal was. Yeah. So I don't know whether do you or do you know? But I know for a fact Madaraka festival is founded by a cat. Yes, right. Who who's who's based out there, right. And I feel like what they appeal to because there's a huge market for the diaspora here who want to well in America, who want to listen to music from back home huge market. Trust me, it's huge.
But so that my argument is you're not really performing to an audience that's completely like oblivious of your art new. Audience and you audience. It's just that, yeah, it's exactly, it's just that they they don't have access to you because they're abroad, as opposed to like, having a whole entire audience of foreigners. Do you know what I mean? I don't know if I'm making. Sense it does.
I mean, yeah, yeah, I guess so I, I would think that there might, I mean, there's definite balance that is, is for sure. There's for sure people them marketing like diaspora people who are who who are familiar with the names, but are just in different parts, different parts of the world. But I would think, let me just say this, I would think that they would want to market it to new to new audiences, right?
Because it doesn't make sense just doing a show outside for people who without getting like new fans, I would think that there would be an an added. No, you'd hope you'd, you'd hope for. It's an added bonus. But I'm telling you, bro, primarily your whenever they say they're doing shows abroad, they're primarily this is from experience. They're primarily doing it to the diaspora that's here. Yeah.
Oh yeah. Because like I'm, I'm, I'm not going to lie, like most of the foreign, like there will be, there will be like foreign, like foreigners in the audience. That's a A+. And so you will get like new listeners and new ears to your music, but they're not the majority. That's just my only. I mean like for sure. They're not the majority, Yeah. So when you whenever you hear like a Kenyan is performing abroad, it's mostly to a, to the diaspora. It's it's not, it's not the other way around.
It's not majority. Diaspora and their friends. Diaspora. The friends they bring along from. The majority diaspora and then their friends they bring along. Exactly. But I mean, yeah, it's again, it's probably, and this will lead, I guess into the next thing about that. It's probably how you market it, right?
It's you could because you could market it to the, for example, if we're talking about Madaraka Festival, you could market the artists to the diasporans or you could market them to like a new people with it depends on how it's just how you presented marketing is, is, is the other thing that that could put you in that international conversation. Again, since we're using Arista as an example, man, these guys have gone really hard on her marketing. They have done a lot.
You've seen how with everyone, the show, the shows that Afan was talking about, we've seen her on there, We've seen her walking with, taking pictures with big artists. We just marketing is really just putting, and we've had to talk about this in my previous episode, just putting whatever it is in front of your face so that you pay attention to it.
So it really depends on marketing to the international audience means you start associating that artist with international acts and in international spaces, international shows, international being features on songs and all that business, it's all part of the package. But then marketing usually is a thing on its own. So yeah, I don't know if you have anything to add on that. Yeah. So do we have that right now? Everything that we've just talked about do we as a country
have? We have elements of it. I don't think we have it fully. I don't think we have an artist. I don't think we have an artist who you can tell is like, that's the goal, to be an international artist. Like Bien said, he's just a lot of artists here. Listen, I'm just trying to make music though. I'm. Just, but I think bien is the closest. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's the closest, his own running the farthest away from it. But we have artists who we see
are they could be right. They have the sound. They have there's there's artists with different elements. It's it's a it's there's, it's like bingo. Like we don't have the whole bingo bingo card. Yeah, out, Yeah. But we do have we do have some of them. It just takes it takes and of course, now it's going to take a lot of people with teams just curating your team. Well, we recently saw what's what's the brother's name? What's the brother's name?
What's the brother's name? He just left sole generation. I'm blanket and very listen to some very trying to take on a more a team that looks like they could be pushing for an international, you know, so it takes that like being intentional about pushing. Which sparks the question like to be an international artist, do you also need international like artist? Management. Services like from, yeah, whether it's management, whether it's distribution, whether it's PR.
Distribution would be huge. You kind of do. For the music, right, Yeah, you need to be distribution would be. I think you kind of do. You do No for sure. Because you have to be talking. Because even if it's just plain, if you just talk about something as simple as playlisting, like the the playlisters who are based out in America or in Europe, like you have to have somebody on the ground to kind of tell them, yo, by the way, we
have this artist who's dropping. Maybe you want to put them on your playlist over here. So you do need international like. Distribution. You need a team that's that's purposefully thinking about putting you in an International Space. And they don't have to be international people, of course, you don't have to go and grab people from there. It's just whoever you have has to have that mindset of, OK, we're trying to push this artist. I mean our borders kind of thing.
And that's why for me, I say Zinnia is on the way to being that because obviously even if you see the way that they move, like her manager isn't really based in Kenya. So like they are, it's it's really kind of hard to like scale up to that level if that's your goal, if you're like primarily just very hyper local. But that that that being said, I don't think being an international artist is the the end. No, it it's not, it's not a industry. It's not, it's a type of
success. It's not the only type of success, right? You can be successful as a local. Exactly. It's a type of success. Yeah, exactly. And for a lot of people, they're absolutely fine with that. And by the way, there's absolutely nothing wrong with like, no? I mean, there's people who have great careers who have not seen a show in wherever so. Exactly. Interesting. Yeah, well, what a conversation. Yeah, the. Where else? Where else? Where else would you get such deep dives?
Nowhere else. Nowhere else can you get such succinct, poignant and meaning. Poignant. Conversations. I don't know why that. Word. Just this is a weird word to me. Poignant. Poignant, I know. I guess there wasn't really much happening on the news. Unless you want to jump jump into who, who had a baby with who, and who broke up with you. Would you like to? Would you like to know about that alpham? Because boy, do I have some news for you. No thanks. Oh, I'm good.
Did you see Dave Chappelle was in Kenya? Talk about new music. I did. I did. That was that was the most quiet entry I've ever had. Is he has the? Show No, but that's his MO. When it did. Yeah, it did. It happened when I when I heard it was happening, I had no doubt it was happening because I had some people like when the news broke, I had some people were like, Nah, this this, this is Camille. I was like, Nah, this is for like, because that's how Dave
Chappelle moves. He likes to do random things like this. And I was like, this is it perfectly in his in his like lexicon or whatever? It's dope. There's no recorded recorded footage. I do like that. Come to my show and listen to me and that's fine. Bring out your phone please. Exactly so that's how it should be. So I can't wait to see this. If the if there's going to be a special and like they include the footage from that, I can't wait to see it, but like it's dope. I like it.
Shout out to shout out to Mr. Dave Chappelle. Mr. Dave Chappelle Yeah, man, do we get into. Music. New music, Sam. Yeah, maybe I can go first. I was thinking, Oh yeah, I need to shout out this project because I forgot to shout it out last week. This is his Streets, which is an album by Chevy, Kev and Giru, so shout out to them for their release one. Also shout in the same realm Lucorito released Agent Mugumbe 3. Shout out to Lucorito. Dangerous. Dangerous to That was an instrumental.
Yeah. Instrumental. You'd know him most people would know his yeah, most people would know his work from Maya Molo. He works a lot with Maya Molo. So if you listen to the if you listen to the to to her music, you you've definitely had his production. So new music, Maya my paradise by Karoon. So she she's going to release like a a full length project with hook and GR exclamation point. So my paradise is one song on there.
So shout out to them. There were skies have cleared by M Rumbi and Leah April. So that came out. M Rumbi was doing his thing as always. There was a Virgin Denim by Turunesh Karoon and Mao from Nowhere. Shout out to them. Very experimental shack, especially with the vocals and everything. Like I was like whoa, this is a this is an experience. There was there was Ushawai by Mejia. His storytelling as always is on par with what it's always been. And he's always like, he always
has a tendency to make bangers. Do you think Major needs to kind of like, because I feel like he's released a bunch of music that sounds it's very major, like, do you think he needs to do anything differently or should he just like, because what he does works and it works very well? It's yeah. I mean, that's a question. Me as a producer, for me, if I was, if I was sending him beats, I'd try and send him something different. Sound like the old Caliph records? Yeah, like the old. No.
I'd like to go back. You want to go backwards. Like sound to the yeah to the. Old are you just trying to add, because this is like an ad for Affirm. This was like an Affirm ad. It's like an Affirm ad. You're not slick. You're not slick. I can see what you're doing like about Do you think? Do you think he needs to get on old Caliph beats after the past three podcasts? I'm joking though. No, but seriously, do you? I feel like you feel the same way. Maybe he needs, I don't know.
I would have to figure out what his goal is. Yeah, because his music does sound very similar in terms of subject matter and just how he presented. Like he doesn't really step out of the circle, which a lot of people love him for, but he doesn't really step out of that room to do other things. It'll be interesting seeing him and I don't know what he would jump on next, but it'd be interesting seeing him maybe collaborate.
Maybe you could start collaborating with different artists on different types of sounds and see what's like comfortable and then do that. But maybe he's very, again, he could be just comfortable doing major and there's nothing we can say about it, right? Usha Wai is major, yeah. Usha, why? Usha, why? Why? Then there was, I listened to, I'm just going to shout out two more songs that I listened to. There was music. No, no, before I even go to that, there was Joy Candy by Groovy Joe.
I really like that song. Shout out to Groovy. Groovy has bars for days. And yeah, shout out to everyone at ADF and keep it pale. So shout out to Groovy man, Joy Candy. And then I guess the thing I listened to last was music to Step 2 by Mr. Cap Carpenter. It was Cap Cap move like metro he booming. What else is he known as, Sam? Do you know any other monikers
for Cap? Anyway, someone knows that as Mike Michael, Mike Mikey, Mikey. So shout out to to cap he he released music to Step 2 music to Step 2. This is the second project from this like what do you call it? What do you what do you call it an edition? No second edition of his. What do you call it when somebody does has like a bunch of projects that follow the same theme? Sequel. Do we call them sequels and. Music. Well, it's the sequel. Is it like a franchise?
I don't know. Anyway, yeah, this is the sequel to the first one, so it has five songs, all very, very short. The longest song here is one minute, 49 seconds. I love it. I love. It that's your thing. Inject that into my soul, inject that into my veins and love short songs. I, because I have a really short attention span, do. You be repeating them because then it still becomes a long song. But that's the thing though, yeah, you repeat it because it's fire.
Do you know what I mean? So it has such, it really has such dope replay. Value I still feel like give me give me a list more like some of the songs I listened to it and what did you see? It was fading out. I'm like, bro, I've not even gotten into please, but hey bro, it's it's it's what's. Going on though Pink Patras was in the Pink Patras was in the news recently because she said she only makes songs that are like 2 minutes and she was like a song does not need a bridge and she.
She was absolutely my. I saw that. Yeah, she was dragged. On, on, on the timeline. And Mia was there like, listen, have you ever like, seen somebody express? Exactly. What? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What, you think and get flamed and now you have to just sit there in silence and see them? You're like oh man. But I I second that though like my views too. I was like, yeah, but like, I couldn't even say anything. I I just. Had to you should have like I
thought you should. I thought you should have been bored and gone like hey, hey, hey, guys, leave her alone. Don't you know this girl is she's your you should have done a little bit. You're just cowering. Disappointed in you, man. Disappointed. Anyway, so anyway, so back to cap. So this project features Jovi Jove, Gashu, Gaza Hotti, Vardi, so Ali Pappy and a combo as well as I'll busy. I really like this. This is my focus like project of the week. I really gave this a dope
lesson. It's what you expect from Cap starting with the strings in the beginning. Like you can see bro, like Sam said he's found contact. Yo, don't, yo, don't put me on blast like that. I think it's about. Contact, yeah, don't put me on blast like that. That's. Play. No, no, that's the playground from you. Don't do that. I didn't say hey those, I didn't say that. OK, now that's a lie. I did. I did say that. Profound.
Contacts But yeah, like you can see Cap is actually like trying to, it's trying, it's trying to progress and then obviously every song makes it to the next song. I love that. No, it's not shade. It's not shade. It's just because we understand what's happening because we are producers as well. The drums are hitting well, but the biggest thing for me that I noticed is his mixing in terms of like the vocals is levelling
up at a immense pace. So like, listen, I don't know what's going to stop this kid, but like the only thing that's going to stop his progression is in his is himself, because like honestly, if he keeps on putting out projects like this man, he's I don't know, I think his progression is just going to be insane. So shout out to that.
That's all I listen to this we. Yep, I just mentioned a couple more I listen to. It's a track by a kid called Billy Kevin called Brother 2 Freestyle, which is interesting. I'm I guess he's he's just he's a budding artist and he's a rapper. It was interesting to listen to. I like listening to rappers who are coming up and just seeing when you listen to rappers with hunger and they still want to prove themselves. It's just fresh.
It's it's nice like a lemon. It's like a lemon squeeze over a fish finger. You heard it here first. It's a lemon squeeze over a fish finger. Finger Yeah. So anyway, it's it's it's that was cool. What else? Maybe not much. I was King Kaka and Keepsang dropped the song called Chirrup. That was cool. I don't know if you mentioned it. Trio Mio Furthermore and 0 Sufuri dropped Rangua. It was interesting to listen to that from the trio. The trio including Trio Mio. Look what I did.
Pumoja sounds stage up in music, so that was cool. I always love listening to that. Bridget Blue released a song called Weapon. That was interesting. Bridget, it was interesting. I don't know. I don't know whether I should put it maybe. But then she had a song drop in Yashinsky that they took down. I don't know what the deal with that because now she's releasing other music and she hasn't released that one even though it released a couple of times. So I don't know what's happening
there. The case of the lost song, yes, but that was that the the song I would want to play and highlight because again I went for a show. Martin Gesser. Martin Gesser is incredible man. His his voice is just very, it sounds very mature, just how he presented. It's really cool. He reads a song called Muse now. Muse was the song he performed when Colours was here, but he I guess we have the studio version now. So it's very incredible, man. It's very it's acoustic.
The guitars are on point, the mixing is great, songwriting his presentation, it was just it's a really good song. So I just want to highlight that and play that for y'all. If AFAM would allow. What do you mean if I would allow it so I'm not there? What? I want you to say no so that we can, we can. That makes yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes that no, no, that makes me sound like a tyrant, like nothing moves and nothing. Moves, yeah, that's how this podcast is run.
I don't know if you guys can hear it. That's now I'm kidding. Let's let's not do let's not start that narrative because you know we start narratives. People just get running narratives now. Look at the narrative, look at the narrative. And somebody is going to, somebody is going to like, listen. To actually, then they're like, oh, wait, yeah, actually hear it, You know, because, yeah, even how Affirm speaks and how no, guys, you're wrong, you're wrong. This is.
Anyway, this is Muse by the talented Matt Gesser. News. There's something different in the news. There's something different in the air. Barely letting us go, Muse. There's something different in the water. The water body swimming and irrigating Car. Car now barely letting us go. If this is all we have together, I hope what we had is enough. La La La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La La.
Locked in your tower, kept in your key. You let your head down for me. Let your head down. There's something tragic in the water, the water body swimming in, irrigating God. You let your hair down for me. All we have together, OK? I hope what we had is enough. I hope what we had is enough. None, It's 2:00 AM and I'm very pretty. It's 3:00 AM. I'm searching for meaning. It's 4:00 AM. I'm wondering where to sleep is. It's 1:00 AM. I'm definitely leaving you
again. News. There's something different in the news. There's something different in the air. That it was Muse by Martin Gessa. Lovely, lovely, lovely sounds. Shout out to match man. He's doing good music and I really match is the other artist who I think would really go international if if he gets like the right team, because he's he's incredible man. He's incredible. So shout out to him. Shout. Out to him. Episode 70. Yo 9 down the can bro, we're
really zooming. We zoomed through the. 70 can. That's for sure. Man, I can't believe when I can't believe. We are in the 80s already but shout out to you guys for sticking with us. Back to the Future. If you get the reference, we wouldn't. I don't mean what? Now if I tried it, so we're you can't believe we're in the 80s. The 80s is the future, but the 80s is also back. It's a, it's a clever pun, but now it's not clever because. Oh, did you say Back to the Future?
Oh, I get the reference. Never mind. Was being slow. Guys, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for being a slowpo. Yeah. I just want to say thank you for listening to this podcast and supporting us. We wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't for y'all. In keeping with my tradition, I want to just remind you guys, the three CS man, always be confident in your work because confidence is everything. You can be confident and just see all the doors open for you.
So shout out to confidence and then consistency. You have to be consistent, you have to be releasing on a consistent basis. People have to be seeing you consistently. It's just the way the music industry is today because there's so much going on. So much if. You decide to stay in the shadows. You will be forgotten. I can tell you for a fact, you will be forgotten. And lastly, your craft. Work on your craft every single day. Just build your craft.
Just always strive to improve. You know, like increment, small incremental, like improvements are so clutch in this industry and they'll take you a far, they'll take you a long way, they'll take you a far away. What the What am I saying? Anyway, I'm. Tired. It's the end of the point. That's what you're saying. Yeah, I understand. I'm with you, bro. Don't worry. Yeah. Oh wait, I just remembered something. Go ahead. This is your platform. Tell me you watched Lord of the Rings.
Tell me. I was hoping you wouldn't bring it up. So that's episode 287017. You didn't? No, I, I, I, I thought about watching it then I did not. The week flew by. This is me giving all the excuses. You've let us all down, Sam. You have Sam. You know what? I'm not even angry. I'm. Just shame on me. Shame on me. I know. Shame me. Shame me. Please. I I agree to be shamed.
I procrastinated. I procrastinated in watching it because I should have watched it and maybe I should have listened to the words of Abraham Lincoln, the great philosopher and former. I was supposed to get flagrant. Let me not say that the great philosopher Abraham Lincoln, he says you, you can't escape the responsibility of tomorrow by
evading it today. And that's what I did the whole week with Lord of the Rings. So if you guys do not want to be like me, oh, that's so smart, Don't procrastinate. Don't escape responsibility. Get it done. Do the music. Do the like half. I'm saying the three C's. Do the three C's now just get it done. You're not doing much. Get off your phone. Hey hey, close TikTok. It won't miss you. I promised. Put down the ID, it won't miss you. Get to the music. You're speaking to me right now.
Some you're speaking to me. Put down, put down. You don't need to refresh Twitter every two minutes. You've not missed anything major and, and people don't be doing anything. They just refresh and they don't even look. Have you noticed that we don't even look at the posts? We just bookmark them and then look, we're going to get into it later because that's what I do. I don't I and I've not gone back to my bookmarks.
OK, no, I I've been looking at the I look at the post I. Don't know whether that's better or worse, but anyways man, it's just get to it. Just get to doing the thing and stop waiting for Stop waiting for the stars to align before you shine. Woo, stop waiting for the stars to align before you shine. And with that, we're going to sign out with this was episode 79 of the podcast and we shall see you guys on episode 80. We out.