Big Brother Africa cancelled!!!

Big Brother Africa is definately Africa's most controversial and yet most watched reality TV show - from the sex, alcohol binge and idleness, the show gets pastors and social media residents around the continent talking like no other.
Last year during South Africa’s Big Brother Mzansi season on the Mzansi Magic and Big Brother channels, a male contestant was removed after hitting a woman in the show. M-Net called this "an isolated incident".
In April this year, the latest Big Brother Mzansi season exploded in controversy over alleged rape when a male contestant bragged how he "dipped her" when he allegedly had sex with a drunk and passed out female contestant who was horrified about what she was told happened.
As many Ugandans may remember, in 2003, the then country representative Geatano Kaggwa is said to have had sex with a South African contestant. Big Brother has always survived on controversy and thus news of its cancelling was shocking.

According to a South African newspaper, the show failed to attract sponsorship this year, thus being forced to pull the plug on this year's edition.
Tina Wamala, MultiChoice Uganda's PR, in an email noted that the show will not take place even though it's sister shows like Mzansi and Angola have been held.
This is of course a big blow the  the fans of the show though good news from the moralist that  have wanted Big Brother off air since 2003.
Biggie as it is popularly known is credited to have created African stars like Geatano, Uti, Vimbai, Tatiana and Kacey MO among others.
Many hope M-Net and MultiChoice will now channel the energy and money into promoting African art.
"It's good we are not going to have to go through that brothel treatment this year," said one commentator on social media.
If it comes back, this won't be the first time the show has gone on a haitus, in 2003, after the inaugural Big Brother Africa, they went on a three year break that saw them only return in 2007 with a new presenter and concept.
Onorchie Orgor, a Nigerian viewer said that the show had stayed beyond the sell by date and was adding nothing to entertainment and African pop culture.
The show suffered a setback last year when the house gutted fire only days to the premiere and it seems that even that attention didn't help on the ratings, and then the bad reputation of violence and rape were just enough to send sponsors the opposite way.

However the show's producers are not settled and hope to make a comeback in 2016.
Uganda has in the past had contestants like Maureen Namatovu, Ernest Wasike, Sharon Nalukenge, Denzel Mwiyeretsi, Lugudde, Morris Mugisha and Stella Nantumbwe among others.

Review: Bala Bala Sese

Bala Bala Sese was indeed a film to watch out for – an unimaginable love story between the village belle and boy about the rural.
It’s a simple story of Margaret (Natasha Sinayobye) and her sweet love John (Michael Kasaija) forging a way forward even with the resistance of a malicious father hell-bent to marry her off to someone else.
Directed by Bashir Lukyamuzi, the film sets out to tackle one of the commonest topics in Uganda’s art narrative, HIV/AIDS then to deceit, innocence and shrewdness.
The film boosts a very good picture – the cinematography was on point and the camera movements were well calculated, for instance every time they had to pan, it was appropriately done and at the right time, something that many African film makers get wrong.
The film is crisply put together by Usama Mukwaya with a couple of punchlines, funny quotes and serious banters that help us go through the story with ease.
It’s a love story for the biggest part of the film, John wants to make money and wed Margaret. However, when Kasirivu (Raymond Rushabiro) loses village tycoon Zeus’s (Jabal Ddungu) goods worth millions, they decide to settle the matter like gentlemen.
Zues offers Kasirivu more cows and in return, he gives him Margret’s hand in marriage even before talking to her.
Meanwhile, Margaret’s sister had left the village in search of a better life in the city, there she finds herself sharing a cubical with two girls that earn as prostitutes.
We see the producers put together a message of love, betrayal and HIV beautifully told even without forcing us to be sad and grumpy – in fact, Aids or HIV was never mentioned anywhere in the film.
Problem was that the story wasn’t really falling into place wholly, it was the first Ugandan film that didn’t drag but simply lost its self….too many sub plots..
It seemed like some key events in the story just went missing or they never considered them important enough, for instance, we expected to see John, the guy Margaret wanted to marry fight for her love against Zeus.
Then most of the characters were not fully developed, which detached us from their emotions, in fact, I guess if the Kasaijas were not dating in real life, we wouldn’t have looted for them to succeed.
But in any way, even when we lost ourselves for some parts, the film somehow manages to find it’s self because of the interesting lines and acting;  Sinayobye was splendid when she lived the part of a naïve village belle whose dream in life was to own a pair of shoes!
She was convincing just like Rushabiro as her father- he was the best when it came to staying in character through the whole film.
“I tried to do something that would make Ugandans differentiate Raymond from Kasirivu and the result was the character,” he says.
Director Lukyamuzi notes that this being his very first project he believes it’s just the baby steps and expects to learn from this experience for the work he will do after this.
Even with some shortcomings, Bala Bala Sese could easily become one of the best deliveries in Uganda, we connect with the characters more than we have with any in many other local films, they are so real and they talk about things we know. It’s that Ugandan film where you cry with Kasirivu and his quest to at least have a boy child – it’s something that resonates to a Ugandan homestead and Margeret’s desire to have a better life without losing her soul – clearly innocent as they come!
It could have been all over the place but we saw ourselves, dreams and aspirations in some of the characters, and at times that’s all a film maker needs to get an audience.

MTV MAMAs, they should have known better

Uganda's Bebe Cool talks to a journalist

Last week, the MTV MAMAs were the talk, down in Durban.
Lots of stars coming together, the bling, showing off and selfies - these boys almost overshadowed the ongoing Durban International Film Festival.
Then we got to the event it’s self – I can’t be sure if people elsewhere watched the Red Carpet moments but in my view this was the worst done Red Carpet in the history of such events, they crammed the poor thing with all sorts of South African actors, Radio presenters, bloggers – who maybe celebrities down there but are completely useless to an event targeted at celebrating the one African sound.

 

Nomuzi Mabena

For some reason, they had chosen the Black-ish star Anthony Anderson to host the show, he’s an amazing comedian but for an African award show, dude was out of context most of the times – why is that they’ve never trusted Africans to handle this?
Considering the fact that he’s script was all pre-written and more than once struggled with it, especially with the name pronounciations, isn’t this the right time MTV gave African comedians or show hosts like IK, Mich Egwang, Gaetano Kaggwa, Trevor Noah, Kabelo Ngakane or Nomuzi Mabena a chance?
We have the kind and quality of talent to carry such a show.

And MTV should have known better that at the moment, we have African artistes with songs bigger than Ne Yo's Let me love you or Coming with you. Unless you’re bringing King Kunta himself or Chris Brown and Tyga to perform Ayo or Post to be with Jhene Aiko and others, you’re simply wasting our time.
Bringing an American act should never be a wasted effort and thus MTV had to bring an artiste whose music on that stage was going to be louder than AKA, Burna Boy, D-Res and Stonebuoy’s All eyes on me or Davido and Uhuru’s The Sound.

Davido plays with the proportion

But then we had a Ne Yo who was only there to remind us of how cool it would have been if he had performed at the MAMAs way back in 2009 and Jhene Aiko doing the same song she performed at the BET Awards a year and a month back.

Then the very slim list of their nomination list, it literally left many African artistes in the cold – seriously for a continent where Afrobeat, reggae and high-life are highly enjoyed, it was surprising to see that only Hip Hop and Pop genres were celebrated.

Casper Nyovest with his beau Boity Thulo

Leaving reggae artistes like Stonebouy, World Music artistes like Asa and Afrobeat artistes like Wizkid to compete for the same video and collaboration awards – It not trivial to think that if someone is trying to start an award show, they should have to understand the dynamics of the industry; the genres, dynamics and know the knowledgeable people.

East Africa's golden boy Diamond Platinumz

What MTV Base did however, was give Africa a huge stage, copy and paste a few categories from their parent award show and they were done. If they felt like categories for all African music genres were many, then they should have left Hip hop and pop out since they are not that celebrated in this part of the world after all.
But only recognizing those two made other genre artistes feel empty and useless, and for a TV that has organized such award shows for years, MTV would have known better.

Kenzo and Sauti Sol for Kigali Up

After his triumph at the BET Awards, Uganda's sensation Eddy Kenzo will be joining Kenyan boy band Sauti Sol to set the Kigali Up stage ablaze.
The festival is Kigali and Rwanda's premiere music celebration and always one of the most anticipated gigs.
Last year, festival goers who included many Ugandans complained that the show lacked balance as far as representing East Africa was concerned and this could be the reason for a Kenzo U turn this time round.
The festival that takes place at Rwanda's national stadium Amahoro will be a two day event on the last weekend of July.

Boda Boda Theives to screen at the Durban International Film Festival

Ugandan film, Boda Boda Theives will be screening at the Durban International Film Festival (DIFF) that's set to start tomorrow at Kwazulu Natal.
The film which is the third collaboration by African filmmaker collective Yes! That's Us tells the story of youngster Abel who tries to make a living by driving his father's "Boda Boda". When his motor bike gets stolen he piles up lie by lies as he searches the motorbike through the underbelly of Kampala, Uganda. 
The world premiere took place in the Forum section of the Berlinale 2015 while the Ugandan debut was during the Euro-African Film Festival in Kampala.
Other East African films showing include Nairobi Half Life and Venezuela among others.
The festival opens on Thursday with Sara Blecher's Ayanda.

Afroman Spice: Your man is no bank account

National Theater today will be venue for Sandy Soul, Ms Nanda and Rasheeda Namulondo's production, Afroman Spice.
The show talks about  the different trends of relationships with a black man, how to treat him and how he should treat a woman.
The show that starts at 7pm will also touch the famous topic of 'your man is not a bank account!'
Afroman Spice will feature music, poetry and spoken word thanks to the performers that are multi discipline.
Singer Angella Katatumba will too make a stage appearance.
Entrance is only shs 10,000.