Why Royal FM’s Skizzy will never taste ‘giti’

Better known for his association with music group Kigali Boys (KGB), Skizzy, whose real name Gaston Rurangwa, has been lying low since the death of a group member, Henry Hirwa who passed away in December 2012. An Events organiser and master of ceremonies at social events around town, Skizzy is also a veteran radio presenter who now plies his trade at the Mount Kenya University-owned Royal FM, in Kicukiro. Moses Opobo asked him whether anything was up his sleeves: After the death of Hirwa, rumour has it that KGB is no more KGB did not die with the death of our brother, Hirwa. After he passed away, I and my remaining partner Ivan Manzi decided to move on with the group by recruiting a new member to replace Hirwa. But unfortunately the person we brought in thought they could make it on their own, so we dropped the idea and stayed the two of us. Right now Ivan is in the US, where he has been learning some music production. When he completes next year, we will pick off from there. What do you do at Royal FM? I am the Production Manager, a presenter, and soon-to-be field news reporter when our news department opens in June. My work will be mainly to orient new reporters in field reporting in Kinyarwanda. As Production Manager my duty is to ensure that all programmes are well edited and mixed. I work hand-in-hand with the technicians to ensure that everything in production is perfect. My on-air show is called Isanzure na Royal FM, an evening drive show that runs from 3:00-5:00 pm. As a station our editorial line is information, education, and entertainment, and our target mainly is the youth. Any radios you worked with before? I started working on radio in 2005, at Flash FM. In 2008 I moved to Voice of Africa, where I stayed up to 2013, then came to Royal FM. The frequent moving was in search for greener pastures as there is a big problem of paying salaries in the Rwandan media. All I want is to work and earn my salary, not giti (bribes). I spent almost a year without being on radio because of this. Speaking of ‘giti’, have you ever taken a bribe from a musician to push their song? I have never taken giti ever since I joined radio, but I would be lying to say that I have never been approached with a bribe. Young artistes used to propose giti to me, but I’ve never taken their money. There is no need to take Rwf 2,000 from an artiste to play their song when one is earning a salary of say 300,000. I am an artiste, so I know what it means to be asked to pay to be played. If someone came all the way from Gisenyi with a CD and gave it to you, and as he left, tried to offer you Rwf 500 for a soda, do you really take that? How does a culture of bribes and facilitation to radio presenters affect the industry? It hurts to see artistes working hard and not getting rewarded for their efforts, because of giti; where someone who deserves to be somewhere is not there because they don’t know the system or who to bribe.