By Seguya Musa
Singer Maurice Kirya has come out to explain why he didn’t attend the dinner that was organized by the President to host all the musicians during the launch of Tubonga Nawe a song which was done by all Ugandan artistes about his NRM party.
In his Facebook post, the singer pointed out how government has failed to help musicians on the law of copy rights and other matters that bothers them. He wrote:
”To all the artistes that attended the big dinner with our President, I think there has been a missed opportunity. This has nothing to do with politics and neither is it from a political angle, but rather from a musician’s perspective, a musician who has earned the right to speak on this level, and understands the struggles, of being an artiste in Uganda.
I understand that our president made some financial assistance offers to the musicians (as a whole) to better their financial status. This would be much appreciated but for how long will artistes survive on these kind of gestures, for how long will we ask for what we need and continue wait in vain? Did the President talk about the copyright law and its enforcement? Did he mention why it is not enforced? Is he aware that we’ve been asking for this enforcement for so many years? Does he realise that the reason he’s giving artistes financial assistance is because the artistes have been denied the benefits of the protection of copyright law which would increase their income?
As an artiste, you invest talent, hard work, time and money and you definitely want to be paid for your works. You should be paid every time your songs are played on the radio, every time your work is used. This is a basic principal of the music industry.
Mr President is an extremely intelligent man, yet has he explained why the enforcement of this issue has been a failure?
By no means am I attacking any of the artistes or the president, but the elephant (issue) in the room was covered in food and camera flashes! I have followers and fans that believe in what I represent, and they want to emulate us and me some day,…what kind of examples are we setting, is this how we want the story to be told? Do we want kids to grow up into a fruitless artistic industry yet all it requires is governance? I love food, I love to sit down and have a good big meal with the president, I think it would be a big deal, but the reason I turned down his invitation is because I’m interested in more important issues at this point, issues that will help the future generations of arts to come…and especially the youth! As artistes we might be a minority in the business sector in the country, but we sure make the biggest noise, we too want to reap from what we sowed and what we’ll sow, and if a big presidential dinner can fix that…then maybe I really missed that food!”
