RENOWNED GOSPEL MUSICIAN Aline Gahongayire has said that the just-concluded Rwanda Gospel Live event failed to meet its purpose and was instead shaped by plenty of ‘unacceptable’ malpractices that left artists who participated in the event disappointed. Gahongayire was one of 15 artists that were selected to participate in the inaugural Rwanda Gospel Stars Live, a contest initiated last year not only to empower gospel artistes financially but to also promote and support the gospel music industry to the vast audience of the creative industry in general. Tanzania’s Rose Muhando was the star performer of the concert held Sunday, March 6, at Canal Olympia, Rebero after she was lined up to perform alongside local gospel music stars to grace the awarding event to celebrate and recognise gospel artistes who made a difference during the ‘Rwanda Gospel Stars Live’ contest. While artistes were in the beginning impressed by the contest organisers, Matts Rwanda services, for bringing up an initiative intended to support local gospel artists musically and financially, some of them, including Gahongayire, did not welcome the news about the performance of Muhando who, she said, did not show respect to local artists at an event that was meant to celebrate them. The renowned local gospel musician, however, took the blame to the event organisers who in the first place lacked respect and communication towards participating artistes in the last days prior to Sunday’s event yet things were quiet going well in the beginning of the contest last year, prompting artistes and the whole panel of the jury to pull out of the contest before the D-day. “Some artistes and members of the jury pulled out because the organisers did not do what they promised to do. The judges decided to quit after realising that what organisers were doing was not fair nor did they communicate with anyone about the changes that were going on. The last days were our worst during the whole contest because organisers were more focused on Muhando’s concert than updating us on ‘our event’,” Gahongayire claimed via her youtube channel. Before the contest began last year, participating artistes were told that they would do live recordings and have their performances broadcast on Television so the public could watch the shows from home since concerts were still banned from public gatherings due to the covid-19 pandemic. However, some clauses of the contract changed a bit and artistes were requested to get prepared to perform live as opposed to live-recording since the concerts were welcomed back to venues and open to the public. As a result, the contracts were renewed and organisers agreed to increase the money for artistes to prepare well their live performances. However, she claims, “We didn’t get the money that we were supposed to get to be able to prepare our performances as agreed” Gahongayire said she and her fellow artistes were not given the respect they deserve during the last stages of the contest because there was no communication to the point that the event reached the D-Day with artistes having no clue of what was on the agenda ahead of the event. Things changed when Muhando finished her performance, which was a playback, as the band that backed her reportedly left the stage and refused to back local artistes who were next to the stage until they were paid the rest of the money that they agreed to perform for. However, Gahongayire said, the organisers had no money to pay the band at the time until the Canal Olympia management decided to lend them some to pay them so they could return to stage. “I was crying in the back stage because the band refused to go back on stage. We, local artists, were at risk of performing with no band behind us,” she said. “But I was ready to pay my money worth Rwf 1,5 million that was missing for the band to continue performing until Apostle [Joseph] Yongwe and the sponsors committed to pay it,” she said. Gahongayire said that organisers lacked respect for local artistes and ‘totally’ disappointed them at the time every artist thought was coming to have an impact on their music. “Those who want to support us in our projects can do so but whoever plans to use our name in their business, I suggest a deep background check be done on them before accepting their will,” she warned. The contest saw Gisubizo Ministries emerge third place and walking away with a prize of Rwf1 million. Aline Gahongayire took second place and was awarded Rwf2 million while the winner of Gospel Stars Live season 1 was Israel Mbonyi with a grand prize worth Rwf7 million.
