He goes by the stage name DJ Slahver and is always in the company of Kenya’s top stars. Real name Slahver Kinangoi, Slahver passes off as just a DJ but there is more than meets the eye.
DJ Slahver spoke to nation.co.ke recently, revealing what exactly he does for stars such as Nameless, Wahu, and more.
You always tag along top celebrities the likes of Nameless, Kush Tracey, Wahu just to mention a few in various entertainment functions be it interviews, parties or gigs that they attend. Are you that close to them?
Hahaha! Yes I am but basically there is more than meets the eye. Apart from being best of friends with most of the A lists, I double up as a manager and publicist in their projects that’s why am always tagging along.
So what are you: a DJ, manager or publicist?
Hehe! That’s a tricky one. Well, I would say I wear several caps. I started as a DJ way back in December 2005, something that I still do but expanded to managerial and I would say currently I am more of a manager cum publicist.
I manage a lot of this artistes as I earlier mentioned and it’s my main job that I do on a daily basis. However when I get gigs to DJ, I never let the chance go.
How did the idea of transitioning from being a DJ to artistes’ manager and publicist come about?
After deejaying for three years I felt like I needed to do something else in the Kenyan entertainment industry and that when I first thought of trying out as talent manager. However I kept the idea on hold and continued deejaying until 2012 when I took a sabbatical for two years and when I returned I ventured straight in to artiste managerial role.
As a talent manager, what exactly do you do for the artistes?
I help them push their music projects, improve their branding, book interviews for them and also the PR work that concerns them. I own a company Blackwings Entertainment that deals with that, for instance when an artiste’s releases a new song it’s my task to distribute it to all media stations for airplay, as well as to DJs in the country and abroad. I also run most of their social media pages.
In your managerial roles, you only seem to be working with established artistes why is that?
Not really. I work with every artistes who needs my services and besides, I get most of them to be my clients because of what I also bring to the table. The maybe A-listers but they can’t handle every aspect of their projects on their own thus they will look out for someone they can trust and that’s how I come in. I don’t discriminate the only difference is that I charge more for the upcoming artistes.
Why charge upcoming artistes more?
It’s for simple reason, their work load is much heavier to deal with than an established one.
Talking of charges how does it work, how do you make your money for the services you offer to the artistes?
It depends, I get a cut of 20-50 of what is generated through services rendered
Do you also buy views on YouTube for artistes?
This is a very wrong notion where many believe that the more views one has on a song the fatter the check. It doesn’t work like that. YouTube pays according to what they call watch time. YouTube payment is based on calculation of the amount of time a particular song was viewed and not the views. But answering your question, buying of views is very expensive and I highly doubt if our artistes can afford that because a single view goes for Sh1:27 cents. You can imagine how much one will need for a million views.
And how do you know that?
Because I work closely with YouTube administrators and I am among the only two Deejays in Kenya with a verified YouTube account. You can counter check that most Kenyan Djs upload their mixes on YouTube through other people’s account.
How much do you think Diamond Platinumz makes from YouTube every month as he is the most viewed artistes in East Africa with several songs?
Not less than Sh2 million from roughly estimate
