Since starting his own online pirate radio station in 2005 called Yes-Ja! Radio, EES, whose real name is Eric Sell always had the dream of having his own radio show.
The ‘International’ hitmaker told VIBEZ! he wants to do things a little different than what people hear on the radio these days. “I approached HitRadio with a concept that would cater for the local but also the international market (as they have a lot of people streaming from Europe) and they straight loved the idea.”
The show will be aired the last Friday of every month, starting today from 19h00 till 21h00 for two hours. “The show will be a very personal EES show. I will be speaking in that unique Namibian German slang, giving the listener a chance to dive into the world of Nam Flava – meaning the local lifestyle and easiness, mixed with a lot of small talk about my music career, Namibian music tops and music that you usually do not hear on radio, as I have full control to choose all my music myself,” he said.
HitRadio Namibia is the first and only German-language private radio station in the country. The station went on air in August 2012.
His first guest tonight will be Sven Thieme, the CEO of Ohlthaver & List Group.
“I will be asking questions in a very straight way, just an eye-to-eye talk, down to earth, talking about local Namibian products and how to push them more locally and even internationally.”
As many celebrities have taken the podcast route, which has been in demand all over the world, the Kwaito star did not rule out to further venturing into that space.
“We are still exploring the options of launching it to a podcast. We just have to clarify the music that is being played in the show, as I don’t want to infringe on any copyrights of artists, being an artist myself,” he explained.
EES said he will be playing a lot of his new and old music; even giving listeners short inside stories on how the songs were created and the story behind the songs.
“I feel that in today’s music, the personal story is missing a lot. Music sounds too much recycled; it all sounds the same just to be commercially compatible. I want to change that and that is also why my new album is called ‘Game Changer’.”
He concluded by saying he would love to hear more local music being played on radio. “We cannot expect our music industry to make it outside our borders if inside the borders we are not even being supported by radio stations. There are many stations in Namibia that play almost only international music; this is really unacceptable.”
-slunyangwe@nepc.com.na