Idris claims Tanzania has most talent in East Africa

Tanzanian comedian and actor Idris Sultan (pictured) claims Kenyans creatives aren’t better than his countrymen; they were just exposed first to the workings of the fast-developing industry.
It’s this exposure that the former Big Brother winner claims has been interpreted as seeing Kenyan content creators as better than Tanzanians creative-wise. Sultan was responding to a debate by a Tanzanian podcaster who sought his opinion as to why the Kenyan creative industry seemed to be thriving compared to the Tanzanian one.

The podcaster pointed out the high number of Kenyan content produced compared to those by Tanzanians that have been made available on two video-on-demand streaming giants Showmax and Netflix which are also available in Tanzania.

“Yes they are kind of a step ahead of us and, unfortunately, it has been the case for a while. For a long time, Kenyans have been using both English and Kiswahili in their creative productions. We have been stuck on Kiswahili. That’s what has determined this outcome we are witnessing now,” Sultan argues.

The comedian went on to argue that Kenya’s use of both languages has been able to offer them an international appeal with, more audiences being able to consume their content and that is why VODs like Netflix and Showmax find it easy to pick Kenyan content compared to Tanzanian.

“But that is not to mean they are better than us. In fact, creative-wise Kenyans have nothing on Tanzanians. If you look around, Tanzania has the biggest talents in the region. In terms of talent, investments, skills and creative processes, it’s no secret that we are so much ahead. And it’s not just in music and film, but the entire creative industry we are bigger than they are,” he adds.

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