MISTER DEEJAY PRESENTS

Every (not) so often I take a Saturday off and hand over the show to my beleaguered producer. I call him beleaguered because we always think of some crazy way of making his life difficult. This time, rather than just getting a replacement from one of the presenters on the station, we held a competition over Twitter and Facebook to find two guest presenters from amongst the show's fans. After a not-so-extensive vetting process, Namagera and JerryRay were the cream that floated to the top and they took over SNMS for a weekend.

We booked Young Mulo, ekky and Unique as guests and Unique brought Cindy along to debut his latest single. Namagera and JerryRay were assisted by DJ Joe on the show.

Enjoy! And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes!

On this week’s episode I have an interview we conducted for SNMS with SA rapper Proverb. Proverb has been doing his thing for quite a while now and has earned the respect of not just his peers in South Africa, but with rappers and hip-hop lovers all over the continent. He has a significant following here in Uganda and it was a real pleasure to talk to him. His insight and knowledge of the music industry is quite something.

On this week’s episode I have an interview we conducted on #SNMS with Richy on the occasion of the release of his debut album 'My Words'. Debut albums are always big deal of course, but this one was especially special, because Richy went through a lot before fnally settling with his current management team and actually getting on with the business of making music.

Richy was kind enough to let us listen to his entire album all the way through and I’m going to play you the discussion we had during the listen as well as snippets of selected songs. You’ll also hear me mentioning a brand new site called www.myziki.com developed here in uganda where you can buy local music. If you like what you hear, support richy by buying his album on MyZiki.

This week's podcast is broken up into two sections. The first is an interview with guitarist extraordinaire Myko Ouma, which was recorded waaay back in March when Myko dropped by the show to release his then new song Club Banger. The second features an interview with JSomething of the incredible South African house band Mi Casa. Now if you are unfamiliar with Mi Casa and if you like your house music- actually if you like music, period- you are in for a real treat.

I was recently told by a radio consultant that my radio show, SNMS, breaks almost every rule of conventional radio. Some of his criticisms were general- that we don’t have a clear structure, that the week-to-week format is all over the place, etc. But most of his criticisms (paranoia-alert!) seemed to be directed at me- […]

I have a very simple recording for you this week and it’s from when Navio came by the show to drop the remix to his Kata track. The remix features Benny D (Akon’s official DJ) and it maintains the high energy, high tempo feel of the original. Before Navio and I got down to the […]

An interesting article appeared in the New Vieion recently entitled “Why most of Uganda’s pop music is junk.” The article, written by Mr Josph Batte, claimed that Uganda’s pop music scene lacks creativity and innovation, and is full of one-hit-seekers, who sacrifice musicality for the sake of a quick buck. Mr Batte was not afraid to call out particular artists in his article and although I disagreed with the general argument he made, I did agree with some of his particular points.

Although I am, on the whole, optimistic about the direction of Ugandan pop music in general and of the urban genres in particular, Mr Batte made some very persuasive points in his article and I invited him on to SNMS to discuss them.

You can read the article here: http://www.newvision.co.ug/news/640676-why-most-of-uganda-s-pop-music-is-junk.html

Enjoy!

This week's podcast features an interview we conducted on SNMS with DJ Global, who stopped by the show to discuss his latest single “Toluleta”. The song is a bouncy dance number that features Salvado, a local comedian and radio-presenter. Salvado has been known to perform the occasional musical number during his act, but he doesn’t usually record full songs. I asked DJ Global amongst other things, how he made the collaboration happen and why he wanted Salvado in particular for this track.

While he was with us, DJ global also also broke down the instrumental for the track and walked us through the decisions he made in studio. As usual, this is talk-heavy, but it’s the way we like it on SNMS. :)

You can download "Tololeta" here: https://soundcloud.com/beni-global/toluleta

I have two interviews for you this week- the first is with JT and the second is with Ruyonga. It feels natural that these two should be on the same podcast because not only are they are long term music collaborators, they are also very good friends.

JT is a producer/rapper rapper who runs Yego Productions a local imprint that among other things is responsible for a most of Ruyonga’s output over the past couple of years, including his latest single "Tutuuse" for which there is a video being released soon.

Ruyonga is a local rapper for whom faith and art are inseparable and who I believe is poised to make a serious impact on the continental stage.

JT came my SNMS to talk about his projects for 2013 and to play us his new song which is about his recent decision to give up alcohol. Ruyonga was in with a new track that (produced by JT) called "Yeah we back", and we ended up talking about all kinds of non-music stuff.

This week's episode features a conversation I had with Keko on SNMS near the beginning of this year. Keko is currently riding high after being signed to Sony Music Africa last year and we are all eagerly awaiting her debut project with them, which I am sure will take the whole continent by storm.

Her debut major label single "Let me go" was released to much fanfare in December and there's no doubt that she is one of the main flag-bearers and trend-setters of Ugandan urban music.

Now, given her recent successes and being the classy interviewer that I am, it did not take long for me to hit Keko for some money. :)