The Ugandan East Africa Radio Service – EARS together with Minibus Media kicked-off in October 2023 a project aiming at enhancing musical culture through the edutainment approach. “Time Travel into Fat beats” celebrated 50 years of the creation of this musical genre. The project successfully concluded last December 2024.
EARS is a network of 102 licensed radio stations in Uganda and Minibus Media is a video production and communication-consultancy based in Germany and is responsible for mentoring the radio producers and accompanying the radio shows.
With the mandate to accompany the conceptualisation, planning and monitoring of Stem van Afrika (SvA) funded projects, CAMECO has supported EARS in discussing and refining the idea all the way to its implementation.
The Hip Hop themed radio program involved aspiring artists using radio as a platform for discussing socio-economic issues in their communities. It provided a space for listeners to interact live with the radio hosts through music (instrumentals, rap and spoken poetry).
The ambition was to stimulate social and political participation and awareness through music and radio broadcasting.
The managing director of EARS, Mr Douglas Mubiri Mutumba stressed that the project established contact with local Hip Hop networks and accessed more than 200 artists across the country who took part of the radio shows.
A manual on constructive journalism with basic rules of interview techniques was produced by Minibus and handed out to the radio presenters.
The project included the training of radio hosts from three partner broadcasting media in Kampala: Radio Sapientia, Galaxy FM and Radio City. Each one of them conceptualised their own Hip Hop programme.
Galaxy FM
For every show “Hip Hop mu Luga” aired on Saturdays, there were at least four artists presenting their rhyming skills live on air. The topics ranged from drug abuse and overcoming poverty. The show had a high turnout of people calling-in, about 150 calls per week and more than a thousand live visitors on Tik Tok. The selection of participants combined experienced rappers and beginners.
Radio City
The show named “Area Code Cypher showdown” was launched in May 2024 and was aired every Saturday. It focused on ‘radio-battles’ between new artists representing their neighbourhoods in Kampala. Some snippets of the show were displayed on Radio city’s Instagram page[1].
Radio Sapientia
The topics covered on the show included nutrition, sanitation, reckless driving, and immunization. The show had an average of ten to 15 people calling-in. According to Sapientia, “the audience embraced this new concept from the very beginning, it was very active and ready to participate. It gave Ugandans a chance to discover their capabilities and potential”.
Towards the end of the year, the winner of the Competition for best Ugandan newcomer singer/poet/rapper received as a prize the possibility to record a track within an album. A promo event[2] was promoted in April 2024 that displayed freestyle rappers in Kitintale Kampala.
[1] Links to access snippets of Radio City’s show: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6jpFgfN7ya/?igsh=MXhyaHMwanp6aXpsYQ
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6joEk9rV4X/?igsh=a3M2Zml5dGsydWti
[2] A snippet of the rappers can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv7mipykQ68
