The Buganda Kingdom has banned Gravity Omutujju’s real name Gereson Wabuyu and Lil Pazo’s real name Mukasa Yasin music from being played on both the kingdom’s radio and Television stations.
Buganda Kingdom is one of the largest kingdoms in Uganda with also two radio stations and Television namely CBS FM 88.8, 89.2 FM Emmanduso and BBS Teelefayina.
The announcement was made by the Katikkiro of Buganda Kingdom Charles Peter Mayiga on Monday 9th December 2024
“The Katikkiro has banned playing of Gravity Omutujju and Lil Pazo’s songs from being played on the airwaves of CBS FM and BBS TV for being vulgar,” Buganda Kingdom’s official social media pages said.
This comes after so many people calling out UCC and other government bodies to regulate some of the musicians who are releasing songs with too much vulgar content or message.
Uganda National Cultural Center (UNCC) through its Vice Chairperson Phina Mugerwa Masanyalaze earlier this month summoned the two musicians on allegations of promoting vulgar content.
“The main purpose of this meeting is to have a dialogue about your vulgar content produced and promoted like Okwepicha, Enyama, Doozi and Omunio the latest release, Enkudi and Ensujju for Lil Pazo Lunabe. All this content doesn’t align with Uganda’s norms, culture and creative industry as a whole,” the December, 3 letter read in part.
In July, doctors under their umbrella body, the Uganda Medical Association (UMA) asked government to intervene and stop the release of a video by singer Gereson Wabuyi alias Gravity Omutujju.
They said the song’s video is tarnishing the medical profession’s image.
“There are pictures of which are trending on social media which are not looking good at all. In the video, some musician is holding something which is looking like a syringe and holding a woman bending down in a way which is very uncomfortable. This musician is putting on a clinical coat and a stethoscope and he’s portraying to be examining a woman who is bending down against him and it looks ugly against us,” UMA president, Dr. Herbert Luswata told journalists .
They said the use of use of medical equipment like the stethoscope in the obscene song and video undermines the medical profession.
In October, UCC announced it was going to crack the whip on media houses and other broadcasters airing out explicit content.
“A country without morals becomes hollow. The Bible has it that hollow cities have been destroyed like Sodom .. Much as those are spiritual, what we read is that a community or country that doesn’t follow rules it has set itself it is poised from anarchy. That’s why there must be laws, regulations and policies. They are made in such a way that they don’t encroach on people’s rights but balance between rights and responsibility. Whereas we have talked much about this, many broadcasters have failed to heed to our calls,” Thembo said.
The UCC ED said having realized that immorality is becoming the order of the day, they have decided to crack the whip against perpetrators.
“It is now becoming sort of cultural matter in the industry and seems to be competing against each other on who does it better. We can’t allow this to continue. Broadcasting such content is in direct contravention of minimum broadcasting rights. UCC has now decided to take action against those that have failed to abide by minimum broadcasting regulations.”
He said going forward, all content to be broadcast must be passed through the Media Council to classify it.
“All broadcasters are hereby directed to ensure that all content, including music videos and audios, is properly classified by the media council before being aired in accordance with the Press and Journalist Act.”
UCC said failure to comply with the directive will see broadcasters’ licences revoked while others will be issued fines of up to 10% of their annual gross revenue.