Musicians to form rival body to UPRS

Artistes during the meeting

If you have been around the Ugandan music circles long enough, you would know that there is a body that governs Ugandan music and the arts at large but I kid you not, you will never know what it does for our music.

Last week, there was an assembly of artistes at Laftaz Lounge, Centenary Park as they met with Eddy Sendi of Uganda Performing Rights Society (UPRS) and his team to officially denounce the body and form theirs.

It has been confirmed that there is a campaign dubbed ‘Save the music UG' and by the looks of things, almost every musician needs out of UPRS.

This is a body that is supposed to enforce the copyright law in Ugand, but they have failed at this and artistes are losing money because of this, at least from what we gathered from the meeting.

Over 60 artistes in different capacities were present ranging from old timers such as Juliana Kanyomozi, Bobi Wine, Radio and Weasel and so many new ones who came to get clarification of what UPRS is and if they are a music governing body, do they get any royalties from the different stake holders and if they get these royalties, are the musicians getting a stipend off this?

Some of the artistes who got a chance to articulate their issues spoke and were heard.

Singer Cindy expressed her dissatisfaction with Uganda Performing Rights Society (UPRS). The Run This City singer recalled of a time when she tried uploading her own video on YouTube and she was informed that it was not possible as her video was owned by another party other than her, she wondered who was behind this.

Could this have been UPRS?

Mowzey Radio used the platform to denounce any working relationship with UPRS if at all there was any.

He did not allow Eddy Sendi who was trying to explain how UPRS works or how the artistes stand to benefit from it.

He grabbed the microphone from him saying enough was enough, the old timers should not be planning for the young. The pencil thin singer almost threw a water bottle at the UPRS executive in Sendi.

To show their seriousness, there is a petition that is being signed by artistes and other stakeholders to intervene in the issue of UPRS and the artistes and they need Bobi Wine to table it as a private members' bill in Parliament soon.

Will this campaign really save Uganda's music or will UPRS block them using legal means?