Speke Hotel’s Rock Bar has become a popular hangout for multi-racial revellers who are mostly tourists, investors, businessmen that come to enjoy the soothing, often throwback music from the 80s.
DJ Andy Skillz who spins the discs on the ‘Back in time Mondays’ taps from his wealth of experience to deliver the best music that leaves no Mexican, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, European or American in their chairs.
In an interview with Republic, Skillz who has been playing in clubs for 10 years says he knows over a million songs by .
“This makes it easy for me to play for any audience as long as I identify their country of origin. I have played at Diwali Night for Baba Sudhir, I am the one who started Bollywood nights in Kampala here,” he said.
Having learnt from the great Rhino Kay, Andy Skillz cut his niche as a corporate DJ – that also dictates the music he plays.
Through Pearl Chat UK – an online television, model firm and fashion house, he has sold his trade to Ugandans in the Diaspora who in return put him on referral for their friends and family when they visit Uganda.
The only problem that has bedevils the deejaying industry, he says, is that Ugandan clients don’t pay DJs and this is what has kept them unable to make ends meet.
Unlike his colleagues, Skillz supplements his salary with farming, selling luxurious perfumes and fragrances and a jig at Big Mikes on Quiz Tuesdays.
Skillz has been privileged to play in front of some of Uganda’s most powerful people like the Kabaka of Buganda, tycoon Sudhir Rupaleria, ex-minister Jim Muhwezi among other bigwigs.
A member of the Uganda Youth Forum, the DJ who is also a qualified sound engineer admitted that Ugandan music has moved great heights and pointed out Sheebah and Eddy Kenzo as the artistes whose songs he cannot leave the booth without playing.