D’zyre Derekford Mugumisa Ow’aRukungiri
A few years ago, I got crazy about Ugandan Music; all I wanted to know about was what was happening with the Ugandan artists, which songs they were releasing, what motives they were up to, why they were “beefing”, and all that. This was around the time when all my boys, I think, found me rather local, because what they wanted to know about was nowhere close to what I wanted! Bryan was all about Jay Z, Alvin about all the new ish coming outta YMCMB and the likes, and Joash, hehe, Pepe Kale and all those chaps that have their music played on Radio One… but that right there is a story for another day.
All through that time, I resorted to hanging out at places where Ugandan music was played, and my favorite hangout was “Blue Haze” on Thursday nights when most of my buddies actually came out for the Rock Nights at neighboring Steak-Out. I got robbed almost every other Thursday I was there, but couldn’t stop coming because finally, I felt I had found a place where I belonged. Met people there that could actually talk #UGMusic, enjoy the banter and go to hostel, then, a happy chap, even when I had lost a wallet, or phone, or at times, both!
Every day of those days, I hoped I would have the opportunity to move on from my then, youth TV show, “Prime Club” on UBCTV, to a show where I could just showcase Ugandan Music my way. A show where Ugandans could be sold to the nicer ish they weren’t exactly getting from the “Ugandan Music TV Shows” then. That opportunity was nowhere. The music shows at UBCTV were done by my now “Big Bro” in the TV industry, Calvin The Entertainer, who’d just started out on “The Groove Mix” & “Saturday Horizon Vibe”, and my boy, Richard “Monkey” Tuwangye on “The Beat”.
When Star Television was in the process of being started, I saw my opportunity to step out and show I could do this. The people at the station, by then, knew D’zyre as the “Prime Club” kid who couldn’t even utter a word in Luganda, yet I felt I needed to break that boundary. At the time, all I wanted to do was do what I loved, deliver Urban Ugandan Music to the masses, which in all honesty, didn’t feel like the right platform(Star TV), but I wanted to try all the same.
Mr. Eddy Khan, who was at that time going to be in charge of music shows on the station, reluctantly gave me the opportunity to shoot him a demo, which I did at The National Theater, a demo that he loved so much that it turned out to be the very first episode of “Digida”. I am very grateful to this guy for he provided me with what I wanted, the freedom to express myself! The idea caught the eye of two guys at work, Michael Balaba and Ivan Ntate, who loved the direction the show was taking, and came on board as Video Editor and Graphics Editor/ Director respectively.
Week by week, “Digida”, which aired on the same day and time-frame as the then overly popular “Late Show” by Straka, became more and more popular. I became a trend-setter, I can gladly say “Digida” was the first show to have all those flossy graphics, was the first show to ditch phone-calls and text messages and go all out Facebook, all these moves that people around me felt were huge risks. Even more risky, was the fact that I didn’t have a single kadongo-kamu, band-music track on my play list! I could safely say I was the first to play an Enygma video on Luganda TV. Seeing Navio and Keko by then on a Luganda Video show was unheard of, yet I did it, probably for the first time, and slowly, the trend picked.
All these of course rubbed some people the wrong way, some of them my superiors, who just never understood why their favorite Kadongo Kamu jams couldn’t be played on the show, to which I always asked them back, “If a Rabadaba song can’t be played on a Kadongo-Kamu show, why must a Kadongo-Kamu song be played on a show that’s playing Rabadaba’s music?” Ofcourse the question offended them, rather than them seeing the point, so one thing led to another, and I decided to let them “have the show”, I quit, and as those who knew it then would tell you, it went down the trenches, even when it’s still on air. You can take someone’s creation thinking you can make it better, but there is an 85% chance you won’t raise the bar further. What they did was have it do something close to “The Late Show”, and very quickly, the beautiful idea died a natural death.
My next opportunity came when I got a chance to work with Magic100FM. I built a Friday Night radio party concept, which had me work with a one DJ Janny P, with majorly Ugandan tunes playing, had a slow start due to the massive competition we had, but slowly picked up, and “The Friday Jam Cruise”, as we called it, became somewhat a show people would look forward to, but I was not to last on that one, as by the time Friday night came, I would many a Friday night be exhausted, as I was doing a breakfast TV Show on UBCTV, Good Morning Uganda.
The re-branding of Magic100FM came just in time! It came at a time when I felt the kind of TV I was doing was not what I wanted, there was simply no Ugandan Music on their, the audience I was catering too wasn’t exactly my target, my motivation was at an all-time low, so I took on the opportunity to do The Magic Breakfast on Magic100FM instead. I quit TV for Radio! And at this moment, I feel that’s one of the best decisions I ever made!
This came with the opportunity to do the station’s countdown, The Magic Top 20 Countdown. I took the opportunity, with a condition that it will be an all Ugandan countdown, a condition that the then manager, felt was okay for as long as I could deliver, though a couple of my colleagues visibly had doubts how that would work out! 8 months down the road, and here we are, one of the most listened to top and fair countdowns in the land, promoting Ugandan talent the most! Most awesome bit about it is that it has never been dominated by name and weight of an artist, music quality has always had its say!
Somewhere around May, 2013, I got the opportunity to move a step forward with my Ugandan Music dream, and that was by being in a position to propose a move to have Urban Ugandan Music as the most played music on the station, with a 50% air-share. Some of my colleagues did not believe in the fact that it could actually work, took a little bit of convincing, and with the success of my “Magic Twenty20 Countdown” there for everyone to see, we decided to give it a try! The response from artists was massive, music got dropped, and the motive has actually helped to grow the Magic100FM brand in heaps and bounds!
I am also grateful for at the beginning of the year, I was called up to join the production crew of the now-airing One Mic Show, a show solely dedicated to Urban UG Hip-Hop.
With all this going on, I can only thank God for affording me the opportunity to personally bring the change I always wished for with the Ugandan Music Industry. #TeamUGMusic Stand Up!!!
