Nyege Nyege at 10 Years Review

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Nyege Nyege took place over the weekend and it didn’t even trend online.

For many people, this probably means the show was a flop… On the contrary, Nyege Nyege somehow pulled off an edition that rivals the older editions at Nile Discovery Resort… Remember those ones?

The music was great, there were more Deejays and less kidandali artists to occupy the stage.

For Saturday, for instance, only DJs played on the main stage, no offence to our hit makers but we clearly have a full year to see Azawi, Elijah Kitaka, Sheebah and the rest. Nyege Nyege is for tapping into the other side of music, electronic, ethno, traditional…. They achieved this, of course, there was a brief Joshua Baraka performance when Ape Man invited him as he played Wrong Places… Oh, he later came around as oba Carlos who… and played a set on one of the stages.

Then there was Skrillex, a madman on decks who suffered with curating. So, Skrillex is mainly a dubstep/brostep DJ. But for most people, it all sounds like electronic. The same way most Ugandans think South African house and Amapiano are the same thing.

For instance, Jerusalema is not Amapiano, but Mnike is actually Amapiano.

So most Ugandans are not aware of what is and what’s not with most dance music genres….

Anyway, by the time Skrillex was on stage, people were probably tired of heavy electronic… So he played, and like 30 minutes into his set, people got branches…. Like people started warming up for Suuna Ben an hour and a half before his set.

Anyway, that’s not the point for this post, which is becoming lengthy now… The point is, Nyege Nyege did not trend, which I think was one of the best things the organisers managed well… Ever since the festival started in 2015.

See, local media houses rarely support their entertainment reporters to work; thus, most of the time they are facilitated by the sponsor. Most media houses don’t purchase tickets for their journalists, but with Nyege Nyege, you can apply for accreditation, but you still have to pay for your own camping and the like.

For most of the time, it’s usually foreign media who apply for accreditation, but not the local media.

So if you were at Nyege Nyege, you will notice that for the first two days, there was very little media presence… Media wasn’t there, and there was very little publication online…. See, among the many failures of Nyege Nyege over the years has been accrediting media that actually covers the festival… No offence, the festival gets a lot of coverage, but most of it is bums and people smooching… Which has kind of shaped the Nyege Nyege narrative.

This time round, since politicians are caring about securing the bag than protecting morals… There was no one to fuel the negative publicity; then the journalists… These were not on the grounds until Saturday… So the festival went on for two days without photos of nude people and others smooching dominating the online spaces.

The festival didn’t trend, for the first time, the festival has more reviews about the music and the experience than the nudity and heights…. I think that’s a win.

Written by

Kaggwa Andrew

Ugandan Arts and Culture Journalist. Film and theatre enthusiast. Photojournalist.

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