Speaking at Kenya National Theatre, gospel singer Jemimah Thiong'o cited irregularities in the CMOs' management.
She said music bodies have demoralised most artistes to an extent they no longer feel as though they have the talents.
"These talents need to be taken out there. We have CMOs. They have taken all our money, yet we have good music out there," she said.
"I receive money that I can't even buy a packet of unga with."
The 'Mipango ya Mungu' hitmaker singer asked the Ministry of Youth Affairs, Sports and Arts to look into their issues.
"We want an open system, whereby we can check and see how much we earn every year. We are seeking transparency," she said.
Singer Zzero Sufuri said the future of artistes is bright for all the talent.
Boss MOG encouraged other artistes to always come out and fight for their rights when their careers are shining.
"If you can't speak out when you are at the top, nobody will listen to you when you are down," he said.
"It is high time artistes like Bahati, Sauti Sol, and Willy Paul attended this kind of meeting. You will be replaced and we need to correct the system as a whole."
Gospel singer Esther Wahome described her music journey as a rough one, saying she looked forward to better days ahead.
"We are not seeing what we should be seeing as per how talented and how gifted our creatives are," she said.
"We are hopeful we gonna have structures even as we push for more local airplay so that we can have a fair distribution of our earnings."
This is not the first time Kenyan artistes have complained about being paid peanuts as royalties by CMOs.
The CMOs are the Music Copyright Society of Kenya, the Performers Rights Society of Kenya and the Kenya Association of Music Producers.
In 2020, the CMOs were found to be major culprits of rot in the entertainment industry.
They were accused of conducting fraudulent transactions, payment of ghost or duplicate members, diversion of royalties, poor corporate governance structures and poor record-keeping.
