If nrm has not placed Bebe Cool on a retainer or salary as yet, it is time to do so.i do not see any public figure that has pushed forward the agenda of nrm and president Museveni in recent times like bebe Cool and at the same time attracting the wrath of some people because of telling the facts as they are.he is like a bitter pill, which although bitter eventually cures your ailment.
Being the big brand that he is, it is obvious that each week he is adding more mileage and acreage to the nrm publicity mechanism. doesn’t that deserve contractual pay? anyway that’s for the party to decide.
Many months ago, i argued that to manage the people power/Bobi Wine frenzy, nrm only needed to deploy Bebe Cool.if he had camped say in Bugiri or arua, with a bus load of his gagamel people like Bobi Wine did, those constituencies would have gone the other way, although i still wanted my ob Asuman Basalirwa (who i know has good leadership qualities) in bugiri to at least go to parliament.
What has made Bebe Cool to become the most important public figure for nrm?
We can revisit especially his media appearances and his evolving mechanisms.
Weeks ago, i woke up to a buzz on social media about Bebe Cool appearing on top television.i watched it on facebook live and felt it was one of those interviews that should not have stopped. that interview and several others have positioned Bebe Cool as the most sought after musician on radio and television talk shows.it arises out of not only his strong and consistent support for president Museveni, but his ability to create a buzz around whatever he speaks and also stay in the cross-regional music charts in the country.you see most of the musicians who have recently engaged with politics appeal to one or a few regions, yet Bebe Cool remains idolized across the country.
Another morning i woke up to Bebe Cool on morning breeze on nbs. He appeared with Barnabas Tinkasimire who although tried to undermine Bebe Cool failed to strike a chord with most popular viewers, who Bebe Cool commands.while Tinkasimire sounded dogmatic, Bebe Cool basically drove points that resonated directly with the ordinary public, that cares less if you are in a suit or not.
Then Bebe Cool appeared on konna with miles Rwamiti. It was indeed a state of the nation address as it was mentioned in the pre-interview advertisement.his arguments were astounding.
He was on capital gang, nxt radio and so many other platforms.
Last night, Bebe Cool appeared on barometer, nbs’ political talk show.his interview has knocked off Makerere university’s issues with graduation gowns and the downing of the Ukrainian jet and his own top musician list of 2019 as the most trending story so far.everyone is talking about Bebe Cool’s interview.
That ability to ensure that you trend, when you want to trend belongs only to a chosen few, and Bebe Cool is one of them.i recall that when bobi wine was all over the news related to arua, bebe cool and the bottles pelted at him all of a sudden swung into national conversation.in fact that moment, bebe cool shifted an entire public relation dynamic into something else.
Back to last night, i personally found Bebe Cool’s performance impressive.There are some who have claimed he should not appear on a show where Joel Senyonyi is appearing.Bot sure what drove that logic, but in all aspects, bebe Cool is bigger than Senyonyi. In fact Bebe Cool only deserves to debate with Bobi Wine or the hosts of the shows.
If Senyonyi walked the streets of soroti, i bet few would recognize him. if bebe cool did the same, a crowd would gather in a few minutes and they would listen to him, and discuss him for months afterwards.then that crowd will also be discussed across the country and its diaspora for months.
What does that mean?it means that bebe cool has more social capital than senyonyi, which in political terms is most significant.english (although bebe cool speaks it very well) is not an issue.
Reasoning capacity? i find bebe cool to be exceptionally brilliant in his reasoning.but he speaks the truth that we do not want to hear.many times bebe cool has said that a change of government is not the solution to uganda’s problems, but ugandans attitudes are what need to change.ronald mayinja has made this reasoning before.bebe cool has also asked a question i have tended to ask, if poverty is caused by government, why are some people not living in poverty, for example those in kikuubo? why don’t we sit and study what’s making others not to remain poor and others are in that bracket…bebe cool asks these pertinent questions and the mass of anger for anger’s sake is swung towards it.
Whenever bebe cool speaks there is something to learn.but that learning is fact thrown at you in a bare knuckle face the fact form. now with online subscribers, when they fail to out reason you they insult, fabricate lies etc…our problems in africa are purely wrongly diagnosing problems.to those who oppose president museveni, they have a few things to say.first that he is responsible for all the problems in the country including tax evasion which some private people engage in and which shrinks the collection pool that can be used for expansion of service delivery. when bebe cool speaks about this, simply because he is on a side that some people would not like, he is sent to their frying pan.
Unflinching and pioneering loyalty. bebe cool started the whole idea of artistes officially endorsing a political party or president by artists.someone who is unflinchingly loyal is dependable and reliable. bebe cool is just that. bebe cool started supporting nrm before most of the music industry or the entertainment industry started jostling for the piece of what they thought was the pie.but unlike others, bebe cool was not recruited.he took himself to nrm.and if nrm provides anything in return, it looks at those it recruits first.so bebe cool basically started throwing his weight behind the party and the president when he least expected anything.unlike others who threaten to leave or hold president museveni and the party at ransom for trivial or big demands, bebe cool has remained steadfast with his unflinching loyalty.like i have said before, bebe cool publicly took a different political path of preference, from his father, who evolved in quite surprising ways.that was a very big decision at the time.
Commands hits.at the end of the day, your hit records are your arsenal to fame in the music industry.nothing can surpsass that.at the back of bebe cool’s banner is a consistent release of hits that keep him relevant, as many other artistes fall by the way side.for a party that looks at numbers, bebe cool churns out hits that are unbelievable.
Champion of social media? bebe cool became the biggest social media music icon from 2014, when he built a legion of fans called gagamel that pushed his brand above the roof. i could not tell how he built it up but it became the most visible and audible group of fans for a music icon in uganda.
At the same time, bebe cool received several attacks from anti-government individuals or groups.one thing that made bebe cool to weather the storm of virulent attacks on social media, was his earlier diffusing of print media attacks especially from the tabloids. having mastered how to deal with what he calls ‘haters.’ bebe cool could stand up to a virtual anonymous lot on social media and take them by the horns.
Ninth life? bebe cool always gets out of public attacks unscathed. for example, he surprised many by outliving the tubonga nawe drama.while tubonga nawe brought some negativity from sections of the public who were against it, bebe cool managed to be perhaps the only of all the musicians in the tubonga nawe project who overcame the negativity at the onset.his formula was simply to proceed with making more good music.
With all this in mind, bebe cool remains the biggest asset today for nrm and the secretariat should make solid plans for deploying him in 2021…for example the bebe cool caravan is something they should think about…
Will there be any insults today?
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