Arts dominates our world, but we are unable to value it

There is no one who can say they haven’t been touched by art. From the moment one is born, one is bound to be enveloped by one form or another of the arts — whether it is literature, music, dance, song, painting, sculpture or drawing.

At baptism, or at a naming ceremony, there is singing, dancing, clapping, playful suggestion of names, dressing of the child, among other dramatic activities.

Weddings are generally an artistic spectacle in themselves — from the dressing, to the ritual of making vows, to the dancing, posing for photographs and the gifting moments.

Undoubtedly burial rituals leave an artistic signature that lasts for years — remember the tombs and headstones.

But what is the worth of all these artistic works and activities? How do we value the music of the choir at the baptism, wedding or burial ceremonies?

What is the worth of the dancers who entertain at public ceremonies? How much would one pay an orchestra if she elected to listen to the group alone as opposed to attending a show at a hall?

Is the composer or the singer getting the true worth of her song when it is used as a telephone ringtone? In other words, can we really ever calculate the value of the arts in our lives?

NAGGING QUESTION

This last question nagged me more as I followed media reporting of the death and burial of musician Joseph Kamaru. It isn’t really a new question. But it is always worth asking.

Kamaru’s death and the attendant mourning — highlighted how art touches our everyday lives, yet we are unwilling to recognise its worth.

The tens of politicians who attended his burial made several declarations about his cultural legacy to Kenyans, but they didn’t want to speak about what really mattered to Kamaru when he was alive and matters a lot to living artists — the value of Kenya’s creative wealth.

This is how Wikipedia describes him: “Joseph Kamaru (1939—3 October 2018) was a Kenyan benga and gospel musician and political activist.

He was an icon, a hero, and a leading Kikuyu musician, who has sold about half a million records. He was notable for his politically motivated songs

either praising or criticising the government. His music covered the teachings of life, promiscuity and sexual harassment in Kenyan politics and social culture.”

If, as Wikipedia tells us, he recorded about 2,000 songs, how comes he only sold half a million records over the years he performed?

Would anyone be able to say exactly how much Kamaru earned from record sales and live performances? I doubt. From media records, Kamaru didn’t die a millionaire.

Not that he should have become one. But if he was an icon, a hero and a leading (Kikuyu) musician, shouldn’t he be counted among the wealthiest Kenyans? Shouldn’t his music career be studied in business and arts and performing schools as an example of how the music industry is actually an industry?

Kamaru’s case reflects the case studies that Patrick Kabanda, himself a musician, examines in his book, The Creative Wealth of Nations: Can the Arts Advance Development? (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

One of the foremost thinkers on development living today, the philosopher Amartya Sen, says this about the role of arts in development in the foreword to the book: “Development seen in a human perspective, rather than grossly in terms of expansion of material means, must take note of the enrichment of people’s lives.

The arts cannot but have a major role in making our lives richer and finer. In this sense, the creative wealth represented by the tradition and practice of the arts is constitutively a part of the process of development.”

What Amartya means here is that development is intertwined with the cultural identity and life of a people, any people, anywhere in the world.

This is the point that is usually made when a point is made to the specific ways of doing things, working or behaviour of a group of people in relation to the development of their society. And art plays a significant role in the constitution of that identity.

CULTURE CONTRIBUTES TO DEVELOPMENT

Kabanda notes that “culture contributes to development in many ways.” He identifies three of them, including, generation of “direct economic activity through performances and trade in cultural goods and services”; “the arts’ ability to emancipate or foster human imagination”; “by cultivating community solidarity, inclusion and collaboration.”

These are arguments that are worth pondering, especially here in Kenya where the arts and culture are still seen as marginal contributors to the national wealth.

Yet, if we were to go back to the case of Kamaru, one would be interested in a number of questions concerning his musical career and its economic and cultural contribution to his economic welfare and to the country.

For instance, how many people did Kamaru employ directly over the years in his orchestra and studio? Who and how many managed him over the years? How many people materially benefited indirectly from him either when he performed ‘live’ or through distribution of his music?

How much did the government collect in taxes and other charges from the sales of his records? Note that we aren’t even raising questions about other services including food, drinks, hotel rooms, security, or transport, among others that would be related to a Kamaru performance in any town in Kenya.

A related conversation would be around the film, Rafiki. The apparent controversy about the film probably says a lot about the complexity of arts.

The film gained immense publicity when it was banned by the Kenya Film Classification Board for its supposed ‘homosexual content.’ The chances are that it may make more money outside the country than it would here.

Its directors and actors will probably be more recognised abroad than here. How much wealth — monetary and artistic — is the country likely to lose, considering the hostile treatment of the film by the government?

Two weeks ago, we celebrated Mashujaa Day. We commemorated the lives of those who struggled against colonialism.

Some of the stories of the men and women who engaged the colonial regime, directly or indirectly, seeking justice and freedom for Kenyans were told.

But we know that these men and women relied on stories, music and dance to motivate themselves. The arts do indeed have the capacity to ‘emancipate or foster human imagination’ as Kabanda argues in The Creative Wealth of Nations.

Freedom songs or stories of valour have always accompanied the efforts of oppressed people to overthrow their overlords. Can such a function be expressed in money terms?

Yet, The Creative Wealth of Nations reminds us that there is money to be made and real wealth to be created and used for human progress in the arts.

Kabanda notes that according to the “UN report on the global creative economy”, the sector was worth “$592 billion worldwide in 2008.” Remember that this is a conservative estimate that only considers the official and reported worth of art.

To exemplify the creative potential of art, Kabanda cites the BBC reporting that “South Korea, a country of less than 50 million, somehow figured out how to make pop hits for more than a billion and a half Asians, contributing two billion dollars a year to Korea’s economy …?

This is the kind of money that the DRC should be making, if proper royalties were paid for all the Congolese music that is listened and danced to all over the world.

The point that Kabanda makes in his book is that considered carefully by any society, art has the potential to contribute significantly to progress in that society, first as art and culture on their own, but, more importantly, in collaboration with any other sector of the economy.

Art has the capacity to interlink with any segment of the society — politics thrives on art; mental health uses art; urban planning is often an artistic venture; peace projects in war-torn societies employ art; the IT community is a very artistic one, notes Kabanda.

The Creative Wealth of Nations: Can the Arts Advance Development? is a book that anybody seriously interested and invested in the arts, especially in Africa, should have on their reading list or shelf.

Its breadth of content, method, style and language invites all kinds of readers, from the ordinary one to the policymaker to the specialist teacher of performing arts and economics of art. It is possibly the most authoritative book today on creative wealth.

The writer teaches literature at the University of Nairobi. [email protected]