Octopizzo has come out to strongly challenge statements by Diamond Platnumz and Otile Brown that East African musicians need to tone down on Swahili and sing in English for them to go international.
Speaking in an interview in Tanzania, the Kenyan rapper dismissed claims that English is the key to going international while at the same time praising Bongo musicians for embracing the Swahili language.
“It is not a must for artists to sing in English for them to go international, be inspired but don’t copy,” Octopizzo said.
“Be unique by pushing our culture the same way Afrobeat artists pushed their music culture.
In the next five years, people should be listening to Swahili music alone. We have a lot of work despite the few stars. We need to push ourselves with our languages. We need to push ourselves,” he added.
Octopizzo further stated that he would never work with a Tanzanian artiste who approaches him for an English collaboration.
“I will not agree since that is not who they are, you are copying,” he said.
Octo noted that English was other people’s mother tongue, adding that artists should not use other people’s language to go international.
“The most streamed artists are not singing English songs. The main thing is to do good music. We love Congo and South African music yet we don’t understand their language. English is not a measure of intelligence but just a language like our mother tongues,” Octopizzo said.
Octopizzo’s sentiments come shortly after Diamond Platnumz and Otile Brown urged East African musicians to embrace English to go international.
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Speaking in a recent digital forum, Diamond said most of his fans in Tanzania bash him for doing songs in English yet they don’t understand the language.
“If you do not go international, your fans say you are not working hard, yet they do not want you to do English songs. Our fans praise us when we keep doing Swahili songs,” Diamond said.
The Wasafi boss further noted that Swahili music was one of the reasons most East African artistes don’t conquer international platforms.
He noted that singing in part in English is what helped Rayvanny go international. The Wasafi CEO revealed that Vanny Boy was hesitant to sing in English at first but he really pushed him to do so.
“Doing English songs is the only way I could help Rayvanny to go international,” he said.
Diamond stressed that artistes should consider that they are writing songs for people who do not understand Swahili.
“We are currently pushing international and it is not easy. You have to have a big fan base from Africa so that you can conquer there. There are other platforms that are not making money for us and so we have to keep pushing,” he said.
Speaking to vloggers at the airport after arriving back in Kenya in October following a month-long tour of the US, Otile Brown noted that language barrier was one of the main hindrances of Kenyan music not competing favorably with music that is composed in the English language.
He further suggested that Kenyan musicians should stop using the Swahili language in their songs, claiming that the local language limits musicians from going global.
“The debate going around that Kenyans are not putting in the work in producing music, people know the truth but they don’t want to talk about it, the truth is, it’s the language the difference between our industry and the Nigerian industry is the language,” Otile said.
Otile came under criticism for calling on Kenyan musicians to use English in their songs. However, the singer stood his ground and insisted that English is the way to going international.
Related: Otile Brown passionately defends his statement after coming under scathing attack
