As soon as Ogopa Records let go of their artistes, key industry players wondered what would happen to stars whose brand was born and raised at Ogopa. To date, many of the artistes still struggle to find record labels that can understand their brand and with enough recording labels in Kenya and more cropping up each year, it becomes evident that without proper strategy, most of them will wind up in the fast moving showbiz industry, leaving artistes in a quagmire.
Bliss Records is yet another stable that is coming up, amidst all this. The stable is managed by Benawra Shiv Singh aka Shiva alongside music producer Videz Hybrid, head music teacher Francis Ule Most and overall manager ASAP Kenya.
“Have you heard of Indu-Kenyan music yet? Well, that is going to be our first footprint in the Kenyan music industry. Having travelled the world and spent a lot of time in Mumbai, I learnt that there was something fresh I could bring to the Kenyan market. I wasn’t too sure how the audiences would take it but after releasing Win Dem –a fusion of dialects on a dancehall beat, we were positive to keep pushing on,” Shiva tells Pulse.
As it were Shiva, a Kenyan born Indian lyricist and musician attended Agha Khan Primary School, Oshwal Academy, and United Stated international University (USIU), then travelled to the United Kingdom to kick-start his modelling and acting career.
Even then, his exposure to the Indian culture and music had sparked in him the curiosity to write lyrics from his high school days. Despite all the modelling and acting jobs that came his way, he was determined to come back to Kenya and start a music career which would later expand to become a recording label.
It was upon his return to Kenya in 2009 that he established Bliss Records and went on to sign new artistes with the aim of creating a “blissful music recording environment” –currently located in Garden Estate Nairobi.
“Of course it was a risk we were taking with my career when I chose to do Indu-Kenyan music like Win Dem which incorporates Punjabi, Kikuyu, Luo and Swahili dialects, but as a record label, we wanted to reach wider audiences so we got artistes that could appeal to the different audience and the strategy seems to be working so far,” Shiva explains.
As with many record labels in Kenya, the stable provides audio and video recording plus brand management to the artistes.
How was Bliss Records going to recruit their new talents and how much would they be willing to invest?
“Currently, we do audio recording thanks to our producer Videz Hybrid, but most of our videos are done by 2 video directors Boy P and Amit Soni who have worked with Bliss Records for a long time. Our team has a music teacher, a manager and we already have artistes that we shall unveil at the start of 2017.
This will be called the “First Generation Bliss Team” then as we keep expanding to new genres, we shall scout for talent across different towns and avenues, these shall become the “Second generations Bliss Team” and so on,” he says.
What if the stable expands to the other genres, wont it simply be like the many other labels that exist?
“Not quite! We are well aware of the other recording stables in Kenya and looking at our long term plans, we can confidently say that there will be distinct differences in how we handle our brand. The “Blissful Riddim” which was handled by our producer is another great example of how we fused different dialects with dancehall beats and I feel that the combination of dialect shall work to our vision.”
With a vision to release a spiritual album as well, Shiva affirms that he shall go out of his way to learn as much as he can about other religions, then come up with an album that will appeals to different denominations.
“One of the best unveilings shall be a spiritual album that we have already started working on. This shall include gospel worship, Indian hymns and Islam tunes all in a bid to show the world that despite coming from different religious backgrounds, we all serve a greater being that unites us,” he concludes.
