Tasting Kaz's Blue sugarcane

A cold and a rainy weather accented Kaz Kasozi’s show dubbed 7projects – episode 4; Gravity.
An event that was rich on sound assortment; from the trumpets to the guitars, an eclectic mix of Kaz’s genius with poetry, jazz and other interesting ideas, the approach and delivery consistency couldn’t doubted, but the weather.
These shows are usually slated to kick off at 8pm, but this could not because the skies were still shading the place, being an outdoor concert, the organizers at Goethe Zentrum and Alliance Francaise had to improvise with a tent.
Later when the skies cleared, the weather was no longer an issue; we were now waiting for what Kaz was bringing on the table.
The intimacy Kaz and many acts of his nature have with this venue is great and it somehow showed especially with the faith he and the crew had in them. The audience – not your ordinary Bebe or Chamilli crowd started grooving even before the man himself stepped on stage.
But as you could imagine, these concerts never attract crowds, despite their authentic sound, they choose to play within their comfort zone which may be undoing for them; I would love to see more of them on TV than the excuse of artistes we have.
Kaz turned the Goethe Zentrum compound into a music capsule on Thursday with a mash up of classics like Destiny (a soundtrack of a TV show of the same name), Stand back, Nakaseeta waala and Kampala to new songs as well as his groovy unmatchable skill on the guitar, which the majority of the crowds were there for, anyway.
But there was a unifying thing about this particular concert, the trio performances by relatively new kids on the block like Rashida Namulondo, the Poet, Ernest Otim, a bass player and runaway Jazz sensation Jazz Kitanda.
They beautifully collaborated with Kaz’s mastery on songs like the opening Book of Graduation, written by Otim, the soulful jazz balad comes strong on the bass and drums, I guess this is what disseminates it from the many traditional jazz songs we are used to. It’s a song that makes you feel like the writer was trying to find his own way, sound and probably himself.
Then Rashida Namulondo, I’ve seen her perform very many times at various poetry sessions and I must admit she’s getting better each day. She performs with such pangs of pain that would convince you she’s got the poem from her life story.
Johnny was memorable though it was her second If my father loved me that left a lasting impression.
Michael Kitanda on the other hand continued his streak of proving that he’s not just a fad but here to stay, his chemistry with both Brian Mulindwa and Timothy Nabulwa- trombone/flute and trumpet respectively was magical but this didn’t leave out the entire Blue sugarcane band.
Gerald Mbuga came on strong on the dying minutes of Cherry lips, which may have been one of the most cheered songs of the night.
“The three acts were to depict the theme of the night, we’re grounded and thus anyone can shine,” Kaz noted.
The Kaz Kasozi 7project is a series of seven music shows performed over seven months by the funk band Blue Sugarcane. The series began in April 2014 and each show is unique in theme, repertoire, presentation and venue.

Multichoice Africa on the spot over Naija infested content

Bebe Cool was attacked and rebuked by a paper in yellow when he attacked DJs for not playing enough local music on radios and places of recreation, some said he was definitely out of songs and staff to do thus was seeking for attention.
However, during the just concluded ‘Only the Best’ content showcase by Multichoice Africa, the war was reawakened, this time not by Bebe Cool but the African media at large.
It all started on the second day of the extravaganza during the Africa Magic showcase that was hosted by Big Brother Africa’s IK. On the panel was Nigerian actress Rita Dominic, actor Chinedu Ikedieze, director Mildred Okwo, actor Majid Michele from Ghana , former Big Brother housemate Uti and Multichoice West Africa regional director Wangi Mba-Uzokwu.
From the beginning, the panel of seven didn’t amuse many of the journalists since it was made up of over four Nigerians and three Ghanians, “generally Africa Magic is a West African affair,” argued a journalist from Zimbabwe.
But that was just the beginning; Mba-Uzokwo was tasked to explain if besides Nigeria, there were completely no films being produced in the rest of the African countries.
In the heat of the arguments, Mba-Uzokwo explained that she represents West Africa not the continent, she also apologized that other African countries felt sidelined.
Then it was General Manager Multichoice Africa Caroline Greasy to face the music, she’s credited for having put the Africa rising project together. The project was launched with a song that features a record of six artistes where three are Nigerians.
“How important is the rest of Africa to DSTV,” questioned a journalist from Botswana.
Others decried the various syndications that Nigeria has enjoyed over other countries; “They took Africa Magic and that wasn’t enough, they created Africa Magic Yoruba, Nigerian Idols, Big Brother Nigeria, Naija Sings..what’s in for the rest of Africa,” questioned one.
Even though different discussants tried, they never gave the right answers to satisfy the media.
Not even Ebony Life TV made things any better. This is a channel billed to be the BET of Africa, the only and major out doing is that 99% of their content is Nigerian produced in a small state of the country, I hear for Africa. The station runs with a tagline, Everything you know about Africa will change.
Immediately after they were done with their presentation, a Kenyan journalist questioned the relevance of the tagline noting that it should be changed to “Everything you know about Nigeria will change.”
By the time we went for the MTV Base briefing, the questions were predictable and we as well didn’t expect direct answers. People still questioned Nigerian dominance on the channel to which the MTV Base representative argued that the West is their biggest market.
Ironically, one Nigerian journalist expressed his detest towards the kind of music the channel plays; “when I tune in I see Nigerian and South African American wannabes, where’s the vision of promoting an African sound using your channel.”
He replied that it’s only a perception that artistes are wannabes and also noted that MTV Base doesn’t influence genres different acts choose to perform.
Caroline Creasy reaffirmed that the entire continent is within the plans of Multichoice and hinted on a new development that will see East Africa too, get a channel dedicated to its cinema.

Comedians soar with Plan B

Simplicity magnifies the magnanimity of one’s heart – so my high school teacher used to say every time she was persuading us to take a punishment.
It’s a statement that worked magic both ways, saved many from possible expulsions and also saved her the time of creating student enemies.
And this is the theme of emerging film maker Anyenyi Steve’s new ground breaking full length picture Plan B.
This is the second picture after Zenken’s Reform that has used a school setting as the only location, the difference is, much as the later opted for students to enjoy the shine, Anyenyi went for professional actors and other famous faces.
The film continues to acknowledge how Ugandan culture is becoming youth driven – its impossible to imagine, that way before Sheilah Gashumba and Kleith created their own nation with a T, the word teenager literally rendered you a child; you could not own a phone or watch a TV show tailored for you.
Back in the early 2000s, you were just a rebellious kid, there was no time to do hype staff like catch up with friends for some Kadanke thingy during holidays.
In Plan B, Anyenyi’s film that premiered at the National theatre on Friday, he explores the problem that a teenager today is.
The takes us on a journey of one Juku (Anyenyi Steve) whose parents sale off all they had to send him to a high end school with a hope that he will one day become rich and bail the family out.
However, when he gets there, he teams up with a bully crew led by one Ndugu (Daniel Omara) then a manipulative deputy head teacher (Salvado) that uses him to look out for his girlfriend’s interests. Juku loves doing all this because of the fame it comes with.
When the girl attempts an abortion in vain she develops complications that see both the deputy and the crew leave him alone to handle the mess whose Genesis he barely knows.
The film is promising when it comes to execution on the camera but fails on using enough light, there were incidents where you could barely see Omara’s face because its bulged up in darkness, but not just him, many other characters.
The story is beautifully laid not to bore a viewer, it was arranged in a way that many of the scenes do add a thing or two to the story.
It all ends with a riot that was ignited by Juku, some property is destroyed and a couple of lives are lost. When police finally restore calm at the school, the stubborn crew is expelled. One by one, the crew members were cruised back home and it was finally him alone, left to rebuild what he had destroyed since he couldn’t even afford compensating the school.
That’s when it sank in his mind, that much as they supported and looted behind him, in school, every pot sits on its own bottom.

Gondaliya passes first film test

Film in Uganda has indeed come a long way, there were times the entire country waited for a single movie a year.
Even when it came, it was never all that, think about the days Divisionz, Battle of souls or Kiwani: The Movie were released, we yapped about them for years but today, much as we don’t reach the Nigerian mark of more than 30 premieres a week, the Kampala cinema is definitely on the right path.
This year has seen a couple of promising pictures like, The Reform, Counsellor, Poem and on Tuesday, 1st, more magic was unfolded as Paresh Gondaliya debuted his new career with a fiction film about child sacrifice.
The movie is set in Kampala and introduces us to one Wawuyo that gets dumped by a girl because he’s allegedly barren. In the hit of the moment, he seeks solance in a bar where he picks up a prostitute.
Nine years later, she dumps a kid on his doorsteps claiming its his son, glad with a chance of becoming a father, he dedicates his all for the boy only for him to get sacrificed by some dubious construction engineer.
The film was greatly attended especially by the indian community.
In an earlier interview with this site, Gondaliya noted that his decision to inter cast races was based on the fact that both people share a common story and thus needs to be told together.
The red carpet premiere that attracted better known actors like Africa Magic Viewer’s choice award winner Mathew Nabwiso and his wife Eleanor Nansibo, Felix Bwanika, Jayant Maru and Grace Lyndsay Mbabazi among other guests like Pablo and Fagil Mandy also turned out to be a reunion for many.
The film may not boost of the best script you’ve ever seen but has some of most creative shoots a movie has had this year.
The film has already been lined up to  screen in various countries and festivals across Africa.
At the end of it all, the standing ovation was proof enough that much as Gondaliya waited a whole forty years to do his first project, he had gotten approval from all the fans and critics in a snap.  

A showcase that was

Earlene Aonenji Chimoyo, a very refined girl; natural hair, deep eyes and those rare tender gazes, when she talks, she definitely owns the magic to make you talk back because, you don’t want her to stop.
In Malawi, where she comes from, she’s referred to as the princess of radio because of her job as a morning show host on their Capital radio.
That in Uganda would spell ultimate celebrity but in Joyce Banda’s country, it’s different.
“Radio presenters in Malawi are very normal,” she says.
She was one of the over 200 journalists that Multichoice Africa pulled down to Trou Aux Biches in Mauritius to witness the launch  of Africa Rising campaign and also be part of the first ever content showcase by a pay TV.
The four day multi-million exhibition intended to show what Multichoice’s DSTV has to offer in terms of content and channels but in the same way, an opportunity for entertainment journalists from Africa to socialize, network and create byafayo in form of selfies.

Jara team

The festivities of the entire showcase dubbed ‘Only The Best’ kicked off at Trou Aux Biches Spa and Hotel on Tuesday night. It was the first time many of us were meeting the other journalists from other countries like the mixed bag of Nigerians, very anti-social Kenyans, friendly Ghanaians and Malawians.
Malawian crew was very interesting especially when it came to the knowledge they had about other countries’ social scenes. In Uganda for example, their Daily Nation reporter Yvonne Sundu, knew everything about Sharon O, Chameleone and surprisingly, Doreen Kabarebe.
Chimoyo on the other hand asked me about Gaetano and if I was his younger brother, well because of the Kaggwa name, their enthusiast about African entertainment in general was shocking that I was personally hurt when some snobby South African journalist questioned one if Malawi was part of Zimbabwe.
The showcase was both physical and theoretical; in here we became chefs with BBC Lifestyles celebrated chef ED Baines, footballers with the legendary Kalusha Bwalya and we fell in love over again with Ximena Duque and Carlos Ponce both from Telemundo’s Behind closed doors, the only part i hated was when girls kept running to these celebrities for photo opps at the end of each session….(as if we didn’t exist).

Trou Aux Biches where it all went down

The arguments that were raised through many of the showcases were too valid. Many journalists from other African country felt like DSTV’s MTV Base, Channel O, Africa Magic and the new Ebony Life were accommodating way too much of the Nigerian and South African content – to this Nigerians argued that they are the biggest market which was later watered down by Nico Meyer, CEO Multichoice Africa.
He notes that all the regions in Africa are important to the pay TV, and that’s why they are working to involve most of them.
Caroline Creasy, the General Manager Multichoice Africa argues that many African countries at times fall short of content which at the end forces the station to go back to the Nigerians since they keep rolling out new material all the time.

Add caption

Much as many journalists still left Mauritius with many questions, but with the showcase attended by Joel Churcher, Vice President BBC Worldwide and Heather jones of A+E networks among others proved that DSTV is not a masquerader in this pay TV business.
But they were not just showcases, each night was capped by parties organized by different stations, the Channel O and Africa Magic party opened the glitz with the best from the continent, but there was no celebration like the Comedy Central and MTV Base one – they even pulled Salvado to leave the house in stiches, it was a blast.
No wonder, as we parked to leave for the airport, Chimayo pulled her bags slowly and sighed; “That was epic, now I feel like I understand DSTV.”