Rapper Ruyonga has given credit to the social media video sharing app TikTok for the rise of Alien Skin, real name Patrick Mulwana’s career.
In an interview with Mr. Henrie, Ruyonga, born Edwin Ruyonga, discussed the latest trends that budding musicians are using to promote their craft.
Giving an example of Alien Skin, the rapper revealed that he did not just emerge from nowhere with one of the biggest songs in the country at that time.
To garner all the support he has now, Ruyonga claims that Alien Skin took the time to build his fanbase on TikTok before he released ‘Sitya Danger’. Ruyonga claims that Alien Skin did this by sharing content about his daily life every day, gathering engagement. By the time he ventured into music, he already had support from his followers.
“Guys who do not know Alien Skin are very confused about how he came out and ‘Sitya Danger’ was the biggest song in the country. But those who know him, know that he was on TikTok everyday. He was doing like five videos everyday; videos of him doing nothing and posting on TikTok. When he dropped the actual song, he had a built in fanbase,” he said.
Contrary to their era and how they used to promote music, things have changed. He said they used to move from station to station, trying to promote their music, and once they made it onto the playlists of some of the more prominent stations around Kampala, their songs would automatically become hits. Ruyonga explained that he took his time to study the industry and the new dynamics, thus getting a hit song, ‘Party Yani’, during lockdown.
ALSO READ: Jowy Landa’s brother dead after lengthy stay in the hospital
“Everything had changed. There was an era when I released a song, I had to go to established radio and TV channels and once I got there, my song was a hit. Then this guy just comes out of nowhere and does just a freestyle ‘Shifura’ on TikTok and it takes over East Africa.
The era I come from, doesn’t know how to do that. That is what my guys didn’t understand. I probably wouldn’t understand if I wasn’t in place where I stopped and studied what was happening; especially in Lockdown. I knew what to do when I got ‘Party Yaani’,” he said.
