As the host of a weekly TV hitparade, DJ Bob is becoming ever so popular. Yet it’s been a hard struggle to shed off the disrepute that came with allegations of him being involved in music piracy.
That career seemed doomed, however, when he earned a reputation as “the master of music video piracy,” with accusations spreading that he added his name to apparently illegally copied videos. DJ Bob refutes these accusations, arguing that all he wanted to do was to promote the songs.
“I put my contacts in the videos so that I can easily monitor how the video circulates, and to enable potential buyers to call and ask for more music copies,” he says.
What is more, the DJ says that he seeks permission from the artists to add his byline, and signs a contract with them stipulating the conditions concerning how the promotion will be done.
Try as he may to clear his name, the bad reputation seemed to haunt DJ Bob, and it even briefly landed him behind bars early this year on accusation of illegally selling of a local film called Urugamba Nki Inzindi.
Once again, he pleads innocent, claiming that the producer had suffered losses in making the movie and was desperately looking for ways to regain his money back. ”He sent someone to give me the film for promotion, but then went to the police to arrest me because I was selling the film illegally. But that was not true at all,” he explains.
In the end, he apparently managed to convince the police, who released him and ordered the two parties to settle their differences amicably.
Now DJ Bob has turned the page, and the tide of success seems to be turning too. He turned to the radio business, and got his first show, Hip Hop Game, on Flash FM. A few moths later he got another opportunity and joined the Voice of Africa radio where he presented a Top 10 Countdown show of Rwandan music.
It proved to be a hit, and the show’s popularity inspired TV Rwanda to propose the DJ to adapt the format to television. The result is Ishusho Ku Muziki Nyarwanda, which according to Bob is bigger and better compared to similar programs because it goes further than merely a hitparade.”I also give viewers information about what is going on in the Rwandan music industry, what artists are up to” he explains.
“Artists unite!”
Yet the DJ thinks that all is not well with the Rwandan music industry, which according to him still has a lot of weak spots that slow its growth.
In the first place, he thinks that the music still lacks popular support, so he calls on the public to listen to and buy music local music. The artists, however, should also do their bit. “They need to unite to enable team work and effective utilization of the available resources,” DJ Bob suggests.
He adds that singing in international languages such as English or Swahili might also help to take Rwandan music beyond the country’s borders.
For that to happen, the TV presenter says that producers should also become more professional, because today the music and videos are often poorly produced which limits their competitiveness in the East African market.
And DJ Bob, who also owns a music store in the city center, is ready to do his part, saying that he want to create an association of producers as well as music store owners in a bid to promote music. “Those people are the main promoters, and they need to put more effort into increasing the music sales,” he remarks.
He also plans to get involved in video production, with the objective of improving the quality of the clips so that they can compete effectively on the international market. And he wants to encourage other producers to deliver better quality too, by creating an annual music video award, initially only for local musicians but later on for the entire region.
As if all that is not enough, Bob is also a part-time songwriter, and it seems that he is now working on his first single. The DJ did not says this himself, but a well-informed source at a Nyamirambo studio reveals that the fans are in for a big surprise pretty soon.
If that is true, it will be another step on the path of redemption for DJ Bob.