Veteran musician Daniel Kazibwe aka Ragga Dee real has criticized the local music awards, saying they are a waste of time.
Appearing on Spark TV, the ‘Mbawe’ singer who is only a few months away from celebrating 30 years in the music industry said majority of the recent music awards were derailing the industry instead of building it.
“Organisers are just awarding their musicians instead of recognizing creativity. This is instead discouraging talented musicians. It isn’t taking our industry anywhere,” a furious Ragga Dee said.
He accused the organisers of being opportunists who were only after selfish interests at the expense of the input of musicians – the reason why the latter had even lost respect for them.
“Recently I was invited to hand over an award. But when I took to the stage, I couldn’t see Juliana, Bobi Wine, Jose Chameleone, Bebe Cool, Irene Namubiru or even Afrigo. This left me wondering whether I was really at a Ugandan awards or foreign. How can you claim to organise Ugandan awards when you don’t have those in attendance?” he wondered.
Recalling the early 2000s, Ragga Dee gave an example of the Pearl Of Africa Music (PAM) awards, which he said, were highly respected and almost all musicians at the time attended them.
“The winners were always proud of the awards because they were even awarded on merit unlike the recent awards where organisers just come up with the awards to make money and also to reward their musicians,” he charged.
DJ Michael aka Michael Mugwanya was in agreement with Ragga Dee, saying the awards are a mess.
“Awards organisers need to go back to the drawing board otherwise they had become useless that even musicians had started disrespecting them – by rejecting them,” he said.
It is against such a background that Henry Tigan, just like Bebe Cool before him, requested all local awards organisers not to nominate him for any awards ‘because they have lost relevance’.
Meanwhile Ragga Dee, who recently turned into a politician, revealed that he will be back on stage soon. He is planning to hold a big concert in a few months’ time.
