During the last edition of Blankets and Wine, there was a rumour that Nigerian top gun Wizkid would be the next act to grace the festival stage.
The following morning before journalists could run any rumour mills, an early video on the StarTimes page announced that since the pay TV was celebrating six years on the Ugandan market, they had joined efforts with Face TV, a local music-dedicated channel, to gift music lovers with a Wizkid concert.
As you must now know, the show meant to happen on December 3 did not happen. According to a letter from Face TV management, Wizkid currently in the USA, could not come to Uganda because of situations beyond him and was so sorry he was not going to make it.
But the official statement only came after journalists had searched for the artiste that had been meant to jet into the country last Thursday night in vain; some had pitched camp early at the Golf Course hotel where it is believed he would stay and also address the press.
Wizkid, probably the biggest African act at the moment, has had a memorable year. He cemented his bond with Chris Brown which has seen him tour with the RnB artiste for much of this year.
In fact this has seen him work with more American artistes including French Montana, Tinie Tempah, Trey Songz, he even appears on R-Kelly’s latest album and features on One Dance, the second single off Drake’s new album, Views.
By October, One Dance became the most played song on Spotify, a streaming service with more than 950 million individual streams and it is ranked third on Rolling Stone’s 50 Best Songs of 2016.
The song peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US and topped more charts in UK, Sweden, Norway, Portugal and Germany, among others. The icing on the cake was the multiple nominations the song got at the just-concluded American Music awards.
So, no wonder Wizkid may feel quite out of Ugandans’ league at the moment; he is the first Nigerian artiste to achieve some of these milestones and, in some cases, the first African.
Thus when StarTimes and Face TV announced his show, one could understand the excitement from the public; bringing Wizkid, according to many music lovers, was way bigger than having those struggling Jamaicans that end up on the Ugandan stage.
A lot of conspiracy theories are making the rounds as to why Wizzy, as he refers to himself, skipped his Uganda concert. It is reported that after a struggle between Sony Music and Universal Records for months, the Nigerian artiste in September signed with Sony Music because they had a better deal.
It is thought that his next album meant to be distributed by Sony/RCA Records did not satisfy his bosses at Sony and was thus forced to have it redone in the US; it is this re-recording process that delayed him, making it hard for him to be in Kampala for the show.
The Observer has learnt, the only way the show was going to happen was if the Kampala organizers had chartered a plane to fly him in for the show and then back to the USA immediately after.
This explanation was also fronted by popular music talk show Talk and Talk where one of the panelists noted that Wizkid had been paid $100,000 to perform in Kampala; his deal with Sony being a seven-figure dollar one, he may have made a decision to hurt Uganda to save the better deal.
But he is not new to botched shows; in fact, just like the man locally lined up to curtain- raise for him, Jose Chameleone, Wizzy is too synonymous with missing shows.
For instance, earlier this year, he had his show in Malawi cancelled, then missed his flights, and arrived late for a concert in Zambia. He would later not show up at a sold out concert in Zimbabwe, and then UK – all of these in just 2016.
The artiste has since taken to his social media page to apologize to the Ugandan fans although he has not given a reason for his no-show; in the 34-second video, the artiste says he is hopeful that at the right time, he will make this happen.
Some Ugandans, however, are offering no sympathies to Face TV and StarTimes, as many on social media wondered why a TV that fronts a tagline, Ugandan Music, All Day Every Day, opted for a Nigerian artiste for the celebration.
Efforts to reach representatives of both StarTimes and Face TV proved fruitless by press time. However, in a chat between The Observer and StarTimes Uganda on Facebook, the administrator of the page confirmed Ugandans can go with their tickets to places they bought them and they will be refunded.
For now, it is not known how much money has been lost in the aborted show, as organisers stay away to lick their wounds.
