Let’s treat creatives like entrepreneurs
By Stephen Oduor, June 24, 2025In Kenya, the creative industry – spanning music, fashion, film, gaming, photography, visual arts, and digital content creation – has quietly grown into a sleeping economic giant.
At its peak, this vibrant sector has contributed between five to seven per cent of our national GDP, a significant figure for an industry largely driven by individual hustle, underfunded passion, and sheer resilience.
But this potential is stifled by financing gaps, inept leadership, policy paralysis, and structural neglect.
Let us dream a little.
Imagine a nation where creatives don’t need to risk their lives with shylocks to buy equipment. Where a young woman producing a podcast in Githurai can secure affordable loans based on creative output data, not land title deeds.
Where a fashion designer in Kibra doesn’t rely on smuggled imported fabric because local sourcing remains expensive and inaccessible.
But the ground is different.
A professional microphone in Kenya costs nearly double the price abroad due to import taxes, punitive excise duties, and inefficient procurement channels.
When creatives propose solutions – like removing excise duties on creative equipment – the systemic rot becomes evident.
To fix this, we must decolonise our creative institutions – not in ideology, but in structure. The appointing authority must be merit-based.
We need a Creative Credit Guarantee Scheme using non-traditional metrics like digital reach and audience engagement to determine creditworthiness.
Tax relief on equipment, zero-rating of raw materials, and subsidised creative hubs are necessary economic stimulants.
Creativity is not a side hustle; it is a full-fledged economic engine. The time has come to stop treating creatives like hustlers and start treating them like entrepreneurs.
Because when the mic is off and the budget is denied, what we lose is not just GDP. We lose stories, we lose voices, we lose culture.
Stephen Oduor is a communications and PR Practitioner