A recent confession from popular Kenyan radio presenter Jalang’o on how much Willy Paul paid him for his services has left many wondering if he (Willy) is the richest gospel artiste in Kenya.
The 25-year-old singer is alleged to have paid Jalang’o who also doubles up as an emcee Sh400k just for agreeing to meet up. This, therefore, begs the question, how rich is Willy Paul, and is he the richest contemporary gospel singer in Kenya?
The contemporary Kenyan gospel industry has two main rival artists; Willy Paul and Bahati. The duo has largely dominated the modern day gospel industry although critics argue that their style of music has lost the gospel nature.
Before determining whether Willy Paul is indeed the richest artiste in Kenya, one has to put him in comparison with Bahati who is a self-declared millionaire.
One of the largest sources of incomes for musicians is YouTube. The number of subscribers and views that an artist gets is, therefore, directly proportional to his income. Statistically, Bahati has a total of 158,888 subscribers while Willy Paul has 299,563 subscribers.
The content of Bahati’s YouTube channel is a mixture of his reality show, Being Bahati, and his songs. Willy Paul’s YouTube channel, on the other hand, is purely for the music.
None of the last three songs on Bahati’s channel has gained more than 300k views. Two out of the last three songs on Willy Paul’s channel have gained more than 300k views with one hitting 4.9 Million views.
Although the artistes have other sources of revenues like endorsements and from their record labels, going by the statistics on YouTube and the gap between the number of their subscribers, Willy Paul may be ahead of Bahati in terms of finances.