Gospel star Daddy Owen: 'What ails us'

I had the privilege of listening to Daddy Owen’s yet-to-be-titled new album and the first thing that struck me was how blatantly evident it is that he aims at appealing to a more mature audience across East and Central Africa. On the album, he has collaborated with artistes from the Democratic Republic of Congo as well as Uganda.

The King of Kapungala has vowed to revolutionise the industry this year. He plans to release the 11-track album, to symbolise his 11 years in the industry, in the first quarter of the year. Jams on the album are keenly done with three different music genres dominating - reggae, kapungala and church hymns.

“I wanted to launch this album on New Year’s Eve at Thika stadium but I had to cancel because I thought of another way to make it more memorable,” he reveals.

Last year there was little to show of Owen’s work, with only a single video, something he attributes to a lot of studio time working on his album.

Away, from the stage, he becomes Owen Mwatia, a reformed man who is lucky to be alive and as such he has his opinion on the contemporary gospel scene in which he has seen many artistes come and go.

“For the past three years the gospel industry has been thriving; corporates, fans and organisers loved us. That would explain why many ‘old’ artistes come back into the industry while hordes of a new generation of upcoming artistes also rushed into the industry to cash in. This was the genesis of our undoing in the gospel sector,” Owen tells Pulse.

He believes that many of the contemporary gospel artistes want to be successful at the spur of the moment, none of them think about the future. This has led to competition among them, with some releasing a new video every month.

“This has saturated the air space with music that often lacks depth and is of bad quality. I know of many artistes with great quality videos and songs but they will not release (them) because there are just too many new songs,” he says.

He furthers argues that many of the upcoming artistes fail to appreciate that it took some of the notable artistes more than ten years to establish themselves as a brand that people from all walks of life can easily relate to, not only in the country but across the region.

“Today the gospel industry is infiltrated with artistes whose sole drive in music is to become famous. Notwithstanding the fact that some of these artistes exude great potential as gospel artistes they choose to compose songs which are shallow in content and not necessarily gospel,” he notes.

This, he asserts, has commercialised the gospel industry with artistes who have become materialistic. He however maintains that a song can be groovy and at the same time rich with uplifting content.

“A few years ago when DNG came into the gospel industry we thought that we were are finished, the guy was good, however we managed to play along and changed tack to survive the times and even attract more fans. Today however, when some of the young gospel artistes feel their space is threatened; they resort to the easy way out which includes character assassination and trying to be controversial,” Owen states.

He is of the view that while being controversial has helped gospel artistes gain more secular fans, it has also made them lose out on diehard gospel fans. “What many of us do not know is that it is easier for a secular fan to cross over but not gospel fans,” he notes.

Another flaw he points out is losing the support of the church in the industry, something he calls a suicidal move. He would know what he is talking about because when he released Tobina and Kapungala many thought he was his losing his grasp on gospel, only for him to release Kerero, Saluti, Dakika Tatu and Mbona - all deeply spiritual songs.

On December 13 last year, he was named the brand ambassador of the Kiwapa campaign, an initiative that seeks to empower persons living with disabilities across the country. After his album release, he has a country wide music tour lined up. So why did he choose to release an album while the trend nowadays is to drop singles? Owen contends that albums are the only way one would earn revenue from their songs as opposed to just downloads and event performances.

“What many also fail to appreciate is that music is an expensive venture; for my album launch, for instance, I need at least Sh2million to release two music videos to hype the album thereafter I will need almost 5million for the launch,” he reveals.