Femi One on Sunday, May 10, took to her social media pages to share the news of her Utawezana song hitting five million views on YouTube.
She also hinted to her fans that she would be releasing another club banger soon.
It was, however, on that post that a raging debate emerged after a section of her fans commented, asking her to pay the beautiful influencer Azziad Nasenya for her contribution in popularising her Utawezana song.
Azziad’s lip-syncing rendition on Tik-Tok led to the song trending on YouTube in Kenya, with thousands of comments on the video platform attributing their song viewing to Azziad’s work.
An analysis of the YouTube comments shows that the song gained immense popularity in wake of engagement linked to likes, shares, and comments from the Tik-Tok video.
Azziad’s video was widely shared on Twitter, WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook and Instagram
Of course, Azziad has indirectly benefited for her publicity stunts having grown her Instagram followers from mere thousands to 300,000 as of May 12.
By the time K24 Digital published the Utawezana story on April 6, she had 56,000 followers, a number that has now grown by 18 percent in a little over a month.
While many people may brush off sentiments that influencers should be paid for their work, agreed on or inadvertent, showing goodwill goes a long way in building partnerships.
In the 21st century, digital skills and jobs are likely to dominate for years, and the influencers many sneer at are likely to influence the consumption of products.
Therefore, brands, including artistes need to leave their traditional mindset that their music will popularise itself.
A club banger not popular on social media may not bring much success.
Femi One’s response to her fans has, of course, divided opinion. The artist proudly proclaimed that the song was already trending when Azziad came along with her TikTok video.
At the time the first story was being published in April about Azziad’s TikTok video, Femi One’s song had at least 75,000 views and soon hit 490,000 on April 6.
But many fans are also supporting Femi One’s argument, contending that it was Azziad who rode on Utawezana challenge to benefit from the Utawezana song.
For now, it is just a matter of opinion on whether a token of goodwill, in form of cash, should be paid to Azziad.
