I’ll say it; I’m tired of hearing the phrase “Support Local Music”. And it’s because what all these beloved Kenyan artists of ours can’t seem to understand is that some of us don’t exactly give too much of a darn if you’re Nigerian, Kenyan or Chinese, we just like listening to good music.

If I was to subscribe to the age-old narrative that our stars champion, about supporting local and whatnot; I’m supposed to get mad if Ice Prince comes on the radio and get excited if it’s Willy Paul blasting through my speakers. But see, here’s the thing; I enjoy listening to Ice Prince, but I consider Willy Paul’s music as a highly advanced torture tool, kind of like the electric chair, but for your eardrums, and what’s worse, you don’t get to die. But hey, if it was Juliani tearing up my speakers, I’d be swinging my head around wishing I had dreads. To be honest, I’ve even considered growing dreads before for the sole reason that I could get to swing them around like he does.

The moral of the story is; Dear Kenyan artists, we have nothing against you. We actually really love some of you. But you need to stop acting like being patriotic equates to listening to and liking every single person born within this beautiful nation’s borders whoever did as much as cough into a mic and laced it with a beat. Because let’s face it, there are a lot of terrible Kenyan artists; a lot. And there are just as many quality Kenyan artists. So you need to realize that getting mad because a Kenyan radio station is playing A.K.A won’t make me like your music any better.

I listen to pretty much everything but the ‘most listened to’ playlist on my phone has Kanye, Kalamashaka, Octopizzo, AKA, Rabbit, Travis Scott and Smallz Lethal. My point is that in some of our minds, such a thing as ‘local music’ doesn’t exist .It’s all just music. It’s art. And we happen to be human, so we’re bound to have opinions and preferences. So it’s inevitable that I’ll absolutely detest some stuff and insanely fall in love with others. So no, I won’t ‘Support Local Music’ I’ll support music I like, be it Kenyan, Ugandan or darn Filipino.

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