It’s a known fact that touring is expensive. Between the intricate stage designs, the musician, their staff, and other line items, getting an artist into a country for a 60+ minute performance comes at a steep price — and sometimes the cost is outside of an event organizer’s hands.
Managing Director of Madfun Group, Joy Wachira recently experienced this challenge. Madfun Group hosted an afrobeats event billed the ‘Madfun Xperience’ on March 1, 2025 in Nairobi, Kenya.
Ahead of the festival, in an interview with Nairobi News, Joy Wachira explained the difficulty around booking entertainers like Chris Brown, whom they initially sought out as the event’s headliner. The “Residuals” singer is said to have turned down the offer after citing issues almost entirely out of Madfun Group’s hands.
According to Wachira, “What he said as the reason for turning us down is that ‘Kenya does not have the appropriate infrastructures that are good enough to support his kind of show.’ And I tell you, he was right. Look at what he did recently in South Africa (during his performance), Chris Brown wants to come on stage flying from one point of the arena to the other. You tell me where in Kenya is he going to do that? That was a wake-up call for me that we need to do better.”
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With performances by Burna Boy, Vigro Deep, Bensoul, and CHARISMA, the suggested lack of ‘appropriate infrastructure’ didn’t seem to stop the Madfun Group from putting on what looks to have been an exciting show.