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Kwaito musician Sibusiso Ntshangase of Amaloya fame is a heartbroken man.
This is after Metro FM couldn’t find any of his songs in its system to play during a live interview.
Ntshangase has accused the station’s music compiler, Nathi “DJ Nutty” Nthangeni, of selectively implementing the SABC’s new rule of playing 90% local content and excluding certain music genres.
“It is unfortunate that 90% [local content] is not [applicable] for all,” he told City Press on Thursday.
The kwaito musician even vented on his Facebook page: “I was at Metro FM drive time show, with the producer of DJ Naves and SPHEctacula. We were looking for my songs in the system during my live interview.
“I was angry when I discovered that old kwaito songs were removed from [the] system by DJ Nutty, so that the DJs can’t play them.”
He accused DJ Nutty of keeping only “his friends’ songs”, which seemed to get airtime on radio every day.
“Metro FM is one of the biggest radio stations in the country. We’ve been complaining about DJ Nutty and nothing has been done by the SABC.
“I’m not going to pay payola for my music to get airplay. I refuse,” he said.
On Friday, SABC spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago denied that Metro FM was not playing kwaito and defended DJ Nutty, saying it was unfortunate that artists were blaming one individual based on their personal issues.
“Nutty is just a music compiler and he doesn’t decide which music should play where. We have music suitable for a particular radio station,” he said.
“Just because Sbu’s music wasn’t in the system, doesn’t mean all kwaito music is deleted from our archives.”
Kganyago further explained that if someone’s music wasn’t playing on Metro FM in particular, it didn’t mean other SABC stations were also not playing the songs.
Kwaito artists Nomasonto “Mshoza” Maswanganyi and Sandile “Mapaputsi” Ngwenya told City Press they felt Ntshangase’s pain.
Mshoza said it seemed DJ Nutty did not understand the effect of his actions on their music careers when he excluded their music.
“When our music doesn’t receive airplay, we also don’t get gigs and are not able to feed our families,” Maswanganyi said.
Ngwenya reminded music compilers and DJ personalities at radio stations that most of them rose to fame due to kwaito music.
“Most radio stations sideline us as kwaito musicians – they play local hip-hop. This is killing us.”
Music business consultant and industry guru Vusi Leeuw cautioned the SABC not to be dismissive of the complaints of kwaito musicians.
“Metro FM cannot continue to ignore the cries of musicians. It’s time for Metro FM to do something, unless it is part of the forces against Hlaudi Motsoeneng’s 90% quota,” he said.
