EAC......Utake

Pix; Bobi wine and Nameless performing in Kigali recently
Caption; Music is one way in which the EAC has been brought closer as music stars represent the daily life stories of the countries in which they are born. Here Nameless performs in a recent concert in Kigali during the Christmas festive season.


R and B added to UTAKE will make EAC more representative

BY GEORGE KAGAME

Before Rwanda and Burundi joined the East African Community, UTAKE was used a synonym for major themes to attract clients that wanted to identify with everything East African.
Utake represented Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya and mainly but it also stood for the social events in the mentioned countries and could be used to mobilise publicity for every event in the region-soon Utake became a call regional pride and identity.

However since Rwanda and Burundi joined the EAC family no acronym has been invented to represent Rwanda and Burundi on the regional entertainment scene.
This is amusing considering that leading music stars in region have trekked to Kigali to pay homage to Rwanda’s vibrant social life. In the just concluded holiday season regional music mainstays like Uganda’s Bobi Wine, Chameleone, Ragga Dee, Julian Kanyomozi and Michael Ross, Kenya’s Nameless and Tanzania’s AY were in Rwanda making several year end concerts or performing at the invitation of corporate companies Christmas parties.

This is also in line with Rwanda’s determination to be a major service providing nation in the region. The music stars are taking advantage of the Rwandan government commitment to create a robust service sector. As a result Utake should be changed to accommodate Burundi and Rwanda to something like Utake RnB.

“It is no longer UTAKE, it should be renamed; entertainers should add R and B to take care of Rwanda and Burundi,” screamed Gilbert Nkurunziza from Burundi.
Gilbert was recently visiting Kigali and was annoyed that popular Kigali radio presenter with a motor mouth radio Bacti kept refereeing to music from the EAC as Utake on his Bonga na Flash programme on weekday afternoons.

Bacti for his part says its too early to consider adding R and B to the popular Utake acronym. Such things a very long while to stick in people’s memories”. He adds that entertainers in Rwanda and Burundi have to work a lot more so that they also have an indelible mark on East Africa’s social scene.

When Gilbert heard President Paul Kagame’s speech during the recent Chogm meeting in Kampala where the president made it official that government was scrapping the law requiring foreigners to acquire working permits in Rwanda. Gilbert immediately made plans to relocate to Kigali and search for a job. Having got his job, Gilbert wanted to feel home in the EAC, but while listening to Bacti’s daily show he was irritated by the continued reference to UTAKE music and total disregard to Rwanda and Burundi.


With the expansion of the East African Community to include Rwanda and Burundi, there’s room for new ideas. Listening to the latest monster hit by Rwanda’s flagship hip hop crew KGB-Arasharamye, I could not help think of what acronym entertainment promoters in the country will adopt to market Rwanda’s unique musical blend. KGB’s latest hit not help either because the song is more inclined towards R Kelly’s Burn it than Ezra Kwizera’s Sometimes and Masamba Intore easy going tunes.

Before Rwanda and Burundi joined the EAC, UTAKE was known in all entertainment outlets in the region from radios, discos, bars and homes as anything that identified identity of East Africans. UTAKE surpassed musical limits as is the acronym is used in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania to brand EAC products.

Technocrats and executives have continued to ignore Burundi while talking about the EAC, (in a recent research commissioned by GSM- a global telecommunication body-compiled data about the evolving trends in the mobile telephone industry in the EAC but mentioned nothing about Burundi. Similarly, while answering questions about EATV’s evolution to take care of the expanding East African Community, EATV’S boss said nothing about Burundi too. But he said his television station is panning to come to Rwanda soon)

Political instability in Burundi withstanding, the country is certainly a great singing and fun loving country, not only have they provided the region with the famous Cadillac night club- the club originally opened shop in Bujumbura. They have also given Utake the great Cya’gikoko rhythm, and Christopher Matata’s Amaso Akunda rhythms.

“We in Rwanda are more likely to succeed if we emphasized on the romantic tunes and dance moves with which we are easily identified than the hardcore hip-hop which is already saturated by many Tanzanians, Kenyans and Ugandans” says one daily fan of Bacti’s radio programme. He says that recently in a concert it so easy to recognise a local dance troupe as Rwandan than the KGB on stage.

Sociologists state that music is a powerful instrument of identification, Julius Mugabo music aficionado says there was once a time when South African and Congolese music used to dominate East Africa’s dancehalls and had a great influence on the social dynamics of the region. “Their music symbolised struggles of the local population against repressive regimes and support of anti apartheid struggles. Many of the 1990s liberation period music was based on compositions of Lucky Dube and Miriam Makeba.”
Mugabo adds that today, UTAKE is not just music “but a way of identifying with the socioeconomic dynamics in the countries that make up blockade.”

The spirit of the East African Community makes more sense when a Rwandan citizen born in Tanzania is listening to a Ugandan pirated CD with Kenyan music, while drinking Uganda Waragi. (Craftily advertised as the spirit of East Africa)

If music will not bring us together however, grief will as the Jaguar accident on Dec 18 proved where one Rwandan, a Ugandan and a Kenyan died. And the other Ugandans; the police included joined in the process of looting instead of saving lives….too much for the spirit of EAC, observed Fred Ntambara a taxi driver along Remera Nyabugogo route.