SHOOOOSH! show boost for East African acts

The music show airs on Rockstar Television and is hosted by media personality Malaika Nyanzi.  

The Ugandan inked a deal to host the show on 19 February and was also awarded a global management deal by the Rockstar Group, the South African entertainment and content company that owns Rockstar TV.

Nyanzi told Music In Africa that the show is an opportunity for East African musicians to get recognition beyond their countries. 

“The fastest way for an artist to get their music heard in other countries is through collaborations with artists outside their country,” she said. “Good management also plays a vital role in this process.”

Rockstar Television’s CEO Jandre Louw says the company is keen on ensuring all content aired on the show amounts to royalties for East African artists and other African content creators.

“Gone are the days when major TV networks exploited talent for supposed ‘promotional’ and ‘relevance’ value,” he said. “The new world is here with mutual shared value and upside commercially for everyone involved in the chain.”

Louw says that every Rockstar TV artist, celebrity and content creator will directly benefit from all revenue streams and all the value added such as exposure and profile building unlike other companies that retain all advertising, sponsorship and other revenues while the artist and content creators get left behind.

In addition to being re-packaged to world-class standards and exposed to wider satellite TV and digital media audiences across the African continent and to the rest of the world, Louw says musicians can also begin to generate extra revenue from advertising and product sponsorship.

In the past decade, music from the western and southern parts of Africa have dominated the continent. However, East Africa is gradually breaking through. 

“Companies in the industry have been a fundamental part of the progress,” Louw said. “I have always been very impressed with their approach to invest in experience, training, development of great people and crew.”

In the past few years, the adoption of subscription streaming services has driven the East African music industry to growth, proving that there is a rich market for content.

Louw says if East African companies think global, pan-African and execute locally, they can easily be in the same league as the South African and Nigerian companies, which are not only doing local music but also servicing countries all over the continent and beyond.

“One of the biggest challenge in the East African industry is the wrong person at various levels, as it affects everything from there at every level,” he said. “I think the key right now is for brands, investors and fans to rise up and invest more, sponsor more, buy more tickets, create more content, subscribe to more content services and stop supporting pirates so that the industry can support itself more and support the current wave to keep growing from strength to strength.”