The value of music videos to a musician can never be overemphasized, and that is why close to all the artists today want to put out the best music videos. In fact, most makeshift labels are dabbling in video production so as to cash in on this.

Could it be because most club DJs have reverted to the ‘video mix’ format, and not having a captivating music will surely disadvantage the average musician? Either way, this trend has set the video quality standard so high. The question is… are cost-benefit analyses of such an investment usually done?

This is where the issue of albums and singles come in. How many albums are released every year in Kenya? Not that many, perhaps due to the low return on investment. Save for vernacular musicians, majority of mainstream artists go the singles’ route.

Ideally, the essence of a video is to promote a project, say an album. Things are shifting though, with online audio-visual platforms like Facebook and YouTube helping increase demand for video content. Better quality visuals mean increased cost of video projects, forcing the average musician to dig deeper into his pocket. This expenditure should be justifiable, and an artist should ponderr this, keeping in mind the potential benefits of such a video project.

I hope that, as an artist or manager, you will get to settle on a good strategy to build your career.