Eddy Kenzo on govt job: I have stamina to serve

The Senior Presidential Adviser on Creatives is the latest position artiste Edirisa Musuuza, aka Eddy Kenzo, has received from President Museveni. The musician, who is also the interim president of the Ugandan National Musicians Federation, was appointed on Wednesday evening, making him the first artiste to take up the position. 

First of all congratulations on your appointment as the Senior Presidential Adviser on Creatives. How do you feel to be honoured with such a position?

I am so honoured and privileged and I take this position with open arms. I am grateful that all the time I have been struggling to contribute and add to my country, at least some people have been watching and noticing my contribution. So, I appreciate the gesture from the President. I thank him because he has started recognising the creative industry so I call upon fellow creatives to support me, bring ideas, and give me advice that I should take to the President as a collective.

The President has over 160 advisers, including those that he has never seen and others that he advises instead, how different are you going to be from those?
I don’t know how true that is but what I know is that we are going to be advising each other. That is all I can say about that.

What criteria did you go through to be appointed?

I think qualifications vary. Some people are qualified with books while others are qualified by character and knowledge in different aspects. I am one of the most creative human beings on earth. I came into the industry and discovered a problem. I looked at the artistes who were better than me by then, looked at their strong points and and their mistakes. I made those my yardstick. We were so much of importers of art. Artistes used to get acronyms of Jamaicans before they even started speaking partoir (Jamaican) but that is not our culture. We also used to import that sound and nobody could do it better than the owner so I decided to be true to myself. I deliberately decided to sing Luganda because music is universal regardless of language. I have songs with over 150 million views, my YouTube channel has over 800 million views. I have performed on some of the biggest stages in the world and been consistent ever since 2008. I won awards and I am an academy member of the Grammys so I am more than qualified.

What could be the first five key areas you can advise the President right now in regards to your new position?

There are so many but the first is to speed up the copyright law, budget inclusion, infrastructure, and monitoring system. We need a lot of government support, we are not included in the budget yet we are a very huge contributor to the GDP.
We should make sure there is a Sacco where you can go and borrow and then improve your financial status which is better than people expecting hand-outs that is not sustainable.
We need to also look at the policies, for example, we pay a lot of taxes, especially when holding events.

There are rumours that your wife and the Minister of State for Energy and Mineral Development (Minerals), Ms Phiona Nyamutoro, played a big role in your appointment. How true is this?
I don’t know about that. In fact, I am just hearing that from you.

How would you best advise the President on corruption?

The President has been condemning corruption and I would still advise him to do so. He should closely look at his people and how they conduct their business because corruption is not good. However, it should start with us.

What does this appointment mean to you?

This appointment should bring hope to all the youths out there and it should be a reminder that everything is possible and that certain positions are not meant for only privileged people. You only have to behave well and be organised because time will come when you will get recognized because life is what you make it.

What does this mean to the creative industry?

Creatives now have a docket. They now have a window they can use to air out their grievances and to pass on useful information because we have been neglected for a very long time.
This time we are going to come together as creatives, including musicians, drummers, composers, producers, actors and actresses, among others, to have one voice that we can use to achieve what we have long been asking for. So I call upon all creatives to come and we make our concerns known to the right people and be heard at last.

We are going to embark on things like how to handle fame, financial literacy, how do you handle stress and pressure, etc. for the professionalism of the industry. Make structures, individualism does not work.