The Recording Academy, the body responsible for the Grammy Awards in the USA, has received a bid from Kenya of KSh. 500 M to host the awards ceremony.<\/p>\n
President William Ruto revealed this during his town hall meeting at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) to commemorate the Hustler\u2019s second anniversary on Monday.<\/p>\n
The event was intended to emphasise his administration\u2019s commitment to strengthening Kenya\u2019s creative industry and positioning the country as a global entertainment hub.<\/p>\n
This development comes after The Recording Academy pledged its intent to expand \u201cacross the Middle East and Africa to collaborate on a framework to bolster the Academy\u2019s presence and services in these rapidly growing music regions.\u201d<\/p>\n
KBC Digital<\/a> reported the news in June when the expansion was announced.<\/p>\n The then Cabinet Secretary for Youth Affairs, Sports and the Arts Ababu Namwamba said: \u201cCreative Economy is among the key cogs in the wheel driving the Bottom-up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA) in Kenya.\u201d<\/p>\n He added that the Kenya Kwanza government saw \u201cthe creative sector as a fitting ignition for lighting and unleashing the full potential of this enormous youth bulge.\u201d<\/p>\n The announcement by the Grammys in June came after the institution had embarked on a mission in 2023 to meet music creators and learn more about the music scenes from around the world.<\/p>\n The Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr explained the initiative as a way for the 67-year-old instituiton to change.<\/p>\n \u201cThe way music has been going, the way that the world is going, it\u2019s becoming smaller, technology is allowing us to do more, and we\u2019re seeing these really thriving, vibrant music scenes maturing and developing all around the world, and the music ecosystem has just evolved. It\u2019s just changed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n In April, President Ruto said that Kenya was one of four countries to be chosen to participate in the Grammys through a collaboration with Grammy Global Ventures.<\/p>\n\n In his address at the town hall on Monday, President Ruto reiterated his government\u2019s position and said the deal was done.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have already paid the Ksh. 500 million. This is not something we are planning to do; it\u2019s already done,\u201d President Ruto said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m confident that the gentleman here from the Grammys can confirm that we\u2019re on the right track to securing Kenya\u2019s position in this exciting initiative.\u201d<\/p>\n The Head of Presidential Special Projects and Creative Economy, Dennis Itumbi explained that this was one of the outcomes of the president\u2019s visit to the US and his visit to the Tyler Perry studios.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cOne of the outcomes of those engagements is a focused effort to grow Kenya\u2019s creative economy and establish Kenya as a hub for global entertainment events,\u201d Mr Itumbi said.<\/p>\n Kenyans react to the KSh. 500M bid<\/strong><\/p>\n The news has drawn mixed reactions from Kenyans given the country\u2019s perilous economic position.<\/p>\n Coming on the heels of a doctor\u2019s strike, a lecturer\u2019s strike and the news that Kenya Railways has defaulted on its SGR loan, the reception has not been enthusiastic.<\/p>\n Media personality Gathoni reacted to the news by saying that the money could have supported the entertainment industry in Kenya instead.<\/p>\n \u201cPaying 500M to the Grammys while our entertainment industry receives nothing every year is crazy.<\/p>\n \u201cMind you, it\u2019s not that there\u2019s no budget allocated for Art, it\u2019s that it never reaches the artists.\u201d<\/p>\n Writer and lecturer Wandia Njoya reacted to the news that the Music Copyright Society of Kenya had asked comedian MC Jessy to pay KSh. 200K to host a comedy event by referencing the Grammy bid.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have paid 500m to the Grammy\u2019s, I hear. When Kenya Kwanza promised to support creatives, they didn\u2019t mean Kenyan ones,\u201d Ms Njoya said.<\/p>\n All in all, the bid aligns with broader government efforts to forge international collaborations in sports, technology, and the arts.<\/p>\n The post Kenyans react to news of hosting the Grammys<\/a> appeared first on KBC<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Recording Academy, the body responsible for the Grammy Awards in the USA, has received a bid from Kenya of KSh. 500 M to host the awards ceremony. President William Ruto revealed this during his town hall meeting at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) to commemorate the Hustler\u2019s second anniversary on Monday. The event […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104838\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}