PREMIUM Reuben Odanga bets on musical drama ‘Tides’ to rewrite Kenya’s film business Odanga sees that community-building approach as the heart of a long-term business model. Art & Books 22 min ago

Rather than licensing existing songs, the production commissioned original music, making Tides one of Kenya’s rare feature-length musicals built largely around music created specifically for the film.

As the pandemic crippled one industry after another, live-band music, long a fixture in Kenya’s high-end coastal hotels, was among the hardest hit.

With Kenya’s film market continuing to struggle, Tides is a bet that a locally produced musical feature can test alternative ways of making money from a film.