From imitation to highly paid voice actor: How we made a career with our voice

Even as a child, Peter liked to imitate people. There was something lively about his voice.

“I would pick up newspapers and read them out loud like a news anchor. Those were the moments when I realized that my voice was special. I was also a good speaker,” he says.

His path to becoming a voice actor was not easy. “I applied to several media companies for a voice actor casting, but I failed again and again,” says Peter, who did not give up.

Shortly thereafter, he was chosen to make announcements at his church, which gave him a platform to demonstrate his abilities.

“A few months later, I was invited to do a demo for the church radio station. I was chosen as the voice of the station. We worked for three days straight until everything was ready,” says Peter, who is now a preacher.

While working as a radio presenter, his voice became so popular that agencies began recruiting him for commercials.

One of the most popular commercials Peter made was for a telecommunications company promoting their internet packages.

“I did the first Faiba TV commercial for Jamii Telecommunications Limited. When I was narrating the script, it didn’t come out quite the way they wanted,” says Peter.

The production team had to come up with a better way to make the ad more interesting.

“I was in the booth and remembered an incident from some time ago, so I imitated the accent. I did it with the words in the script and that was it. We forgot the plan and worked with the script with the accent,” he adds.

The slogan “Hey, mBoss” from the advertisement became a big topic in the city.

“The Faiba advert was a huge success because of the Kamba accent. Faiba became a big brand 11 years ago because of this particular character. They even animated the character with a beard to make it look like me,” he laughs, adding: “I still did the announcer’s voice in the project.”

When asked about the defining moment of his career, Yafesi Musoke, a creative consultant and screenwriter, laughs like Peter and takes a deep breath.

Then he says, “Yay! There have been a few, but ‘Mawowowo’, the Ilara Milk commercial, is the most viral commercial I’ve ever done. More than six years later, people still recognize me from it,” he says.

He recalls an incident where a pastor approached him and asked him to jump on a table just so he could tell his family that he had met Yafesi.

“I think a selfie would have worked better. And no, I didn’t jump on the table. There was cake,” he laughs.

Yafesi’s first professional appearance was 27 years ago, a radio commercial for a soft drink brand for which he was paid 500 shillings. He was a student.

Lifestyle asked him about his highest salary and he said, “The highest salary I ever got for a single voice recording session was 350,000 shillings. I’ve been lucky that this has happened to me more than once.”

Are there habits that a voice actor should avoid in order to take care of his voice?

“I can’t stress enough how much I dislike screaming. Also, you should avoid anything you eat in excess, especially sugar. I have a weakness for chocolate and try to limit myself to about half a bar of chocolate (40g) a month, which is difficult. And as a side note, don’t eat peanuts before recording your voice. Just don’t do it,” warns Yafesi.

Voiceover skills are so unique that even established actors struggle to master them. It takes versatility, imagination, and more than a little practice to imitate a wide range of voices for commercial jingles, movies, and more.

Manya Nyamweya can’t remember exactly when she started using her voice professionally, but she is sure it was over a decade ago.

“I was constantly getting compliments from people telling me I should think about voiceovers. After my first audition for a radio commercial, I got the job the same day. I’ve also worked on various advertising campaigns, which is very different because every other day you learn a different script to practice your voice to,” she says.

Manya is currently Telkom Kenya’s Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and the voice behind most Nivea commercials.

“Sometimes I meet people and they know my voice because it’s always alternating and they can easily recognise it. I also work as a sports commentator where I comment on athletics broadcasts,” she says.

She prefers to do voice-overs in the morning when her voice is not yet tired.

“When it comes to lifestyle habits, I don’t have any specific habits that I need to give up,” she says.

Manya has a home recording studio where she primarily works, allowing her to collaborate with others around the world without having to travel.

Although she occasionally goes to an outside studio to record, she says her home setup offers a significant advantage.

When it comes to pay, the value of voice-over work is often determined by the company hiring it, but being considered top-notch talent means a voice-over artist can earn good money.

Miss Manya laughs when asked about her salary. She does not want to give a specific amount, but says: “With a good job, I could earn between 50,000 and 150,000 shillings, as I speak both Swahili and English.”

Peter also confirms that he earned at most hundreds of thousands of shillings.

“The voice acting career is more of a passive income career, although with long-term contracts you are lucky if you cross the 1 million shilling mark,” he adds.

Yafesi notes, however, that values ​​can be subjective: “There are price lists for voice artists in Kenya as a guide, but it has been difficult to structure the industry in terms of regulations on voice usage, transfer periods and other technical terms. Currently, value is determined by what agencies or production houses present to companies, measured by the company’s budget or the mood of the finance department, whichever comes first.”

In developed countries, voice actors insure their voices as a means of employment. However, Peter, Manya and Yafesi can only hope that the local industry develops to a similar level.

“I’ll leave that to Morgan Freeman (Hollywood actor). I don’t even know if you can do that here,” laughs Yafesi.

Clients often have difficulty expressing their wishes clearly, resulting in artists having to do multiple recordings in a single session. This can strain their voice and require multiple costly and frustrating studio visits.

As a result, payment delays are common and artists complain about the difficulties they face despite their efficiency.

“If I can record in 10 or 20 minutes instead of two hours, it can’t be that hard, right? But the reason I need less time is because I’ve been doing this for over two decades, not because it’s easy,” Yafesi adds.