TUSKER PROJECT FAME: Of spinning talents and smiling to the bank

Tusker Project Fame is neither a project nor fame.
It is a by-product of copying, lying and googling the Internet for lyrics while deluding the society that it is searching and promoting local talent and therefore has nothing to do with making or remaking anybody famous other than inflating the profits of its chief sponsor.
While it is a phenomenon hard to ignore, it is also hardly easy to appreciate given its ties with the brewing behemoth, the East African Breweries Limited (EABL), one of the most successful blue chip firm around.
In short, it is another installment of the cash-soaked, uncreative spins by freewheeling marketers of EABL known for spending millions of shillings to boost its ratings rather than educating the public on the dangers of under-age drinking or helping end malnutrition among children.
For the past weeks, a wide range of ambitious "students" have been shrieking poor imitations of hip hop music, panting and shouting to beats pointlessly thinking that the brewer, which withdrew its sponsorship to our besieged football team, will build new, if not dormant, careers. No doubt the link between drinking and entertainment, but not success.
What brings the event into focus is what it fails to portray publicly: Its aim is boosting sales for its best-selling brand Tusker. But it has narrowed to this: Deluding "students" to believe they are talents en route to the celebrity world, while reaching a television audience of hip hop-crazied teens who pose no questions and seek no answers.
The project's PR wing Scanad says that project is designed to search for local crooners and toss them into a platform creating chance of lifetimes.
"This is the first time we are having reality TV. Give us time," Scanad PR chief Michael Otieno told me recently after a noisy exchange that ended up more or less in confusing that enlightening me.
"After choosing the judges, we have given Kenyans an opportunity to vote on the students who are in the academy. They will do this by calling in or sending SMS – Short Message Service," he snapped, thinking Kenyans will certainly participate in a show, whose judges’ credentials in the entertainment industry, are as a mystery as Coca Cola formula.
"That is what we wanted... sometimes you have to be subjective," Otieno said. But he was cutting and running from the reality -- transparency.
Despite displaying unimpeachable passion in his job of "promoting" the event, Otieno failed to convince the project settled on hip hop instead of promoting local products even after luring me to one of talent-search fetes in an upscale restaurant. Amazingly, as contracted to do, he easily unfurled his feeling on the generosity and perhaps justification why the brewer spends millions to sponsor the event, which, is just another comic screed.
Otieno and EABL miserably miss the point, unfortunately and whimsically, yet they are fast crescendoing, perhaps unwittingly, into the fate that befall local productions: collapsing after toasting on short time and meaningless limelight.
Academically, reality TV, just like Project Fame, is a screen genre based on "original" and unscripted dramatic or musical productions. It features ordinary people rather than professional artistes or singers. But by allowing youngsters to belt out songs already established and have smashed the charts, hitting platinum; whose lyrics are littered in the Internet and whose beats are free for all, the brewer assumes an imaginary moral higher ground while dismissing the would-be audience od downright Dickensian thinkers.
At best, the project is an overdose of fraudulent, incompetent, inept, unprofessional or a combination of all or some of that. At worst, it underestimates the savviness of the Kenyan TV viewership that has steadfastly matured from one-channel TV to satellite and cable TV channels where well-choreographed shows like the American Idol and Survivor are paraded.
From the start, the project was meaningless since its no originality.
You don’t imitate Michael Jackson, Dolly Parton or Ken Latmore and expect to convince viewers that you are talented. What if giant recording studios sue, or only threaten, the local brewer and its supporting team for violation of copyright for commercial purposes? The best scenario is the talents will be a liability and will be be hung to dry.
Indeed what the brewer has done is frolicking and falconing and scheming on how it can boost its sales while failing to transparently participate in social responsibility. At the end of the day, it croons its way to the bank after satisfying one hawk-eyed taxman at Times Towers while seeking new brands to invest its fortune.
Agence France Presse’s Karen Calabria, a smart character writing on the event recently, tossed around questions on its strategy, motive and eventuality.
"Aside from the talent issue, even those with dreams of musical stardom and celebrity are petrified of what the show might mean, despite their avid program viewing habits," Calabria wrote. "... the chances of superstardom are about as likely as those of a struggling artiste coming up with enough money to produce his own radio-ready content."
Maybe , the EABL fears the country might start questioning when, where and how it spends its truckloads of profit, apart of sponsoring talent-baiting, futureless shows that eventually kill local talents in the name of a higher course.
If it has to pump its profit into nurturing local talent, it should do so on local, established gifted local singers like Sheila Mwanyigah, Eric Wainaina, Nyambane and others other than muttering and sputtering that, "we have talents out there." Where?
Why can’t EABL support local stars to record? Or even back the Kenyatta University or the Makongeni SDA church choirs record music that, we all agree, is just patriotic to God and man. Or may be help foot the salaries of our foundering cricket team that, if supported, that scare giants.
In the past, we saw young Kenyans who participated in such reality arrangements elsewhere in the continent slide out of time, fame and frame forever except occassionally featuring on local entertainment magazines whose readership is limited to high school students.
Instead of belting out ballads that fight corruption and seek to mend the tattered social fabric, the ex-reality TV crooners have wasted time surveying cryptic themes of love and sex, subjects that Kenyans are not ready to spent a dime on and FM radio channels are just bored.
The project producers are downrightly giddy. They are failingly struggling to portray themselves as fair and guided by the pillars of moral justice. Yet it is common knowledge that reality TV is based on a mischievous principle deploys exploitative gimmick of fireworks, cheap promotion electronics prizes under the fragile cloak of exploring social justice and giving everybody a chance to be great.
They think they can boost a singing talent, if any, from a wannabe singer nearing 30. Though it rarely happen, it is equivalent to expecting a child from a woman who has reached menopause in an apparent bid to defy the well-researched science on reproductive health.
"That whole show is not well thought-of, presented or even choreographed. I do not think it is worth getting a live coverage," snapped a seasoned TV producer.
I am not sure whether the show presenter, Gaetano Kagwa, an ego-laden ex-Big Brother Africa housemate, whose debatable behaviour in the House, can do any good to the project.
Project Fame just wants to make Tusker famous, not the deluded students. It is grotesque. It is mad, bad and sad.