Exclusive interview with Unkut Africa & Unkut Hip Hop Awards founder, Ruby V

It's award season and in case you've been living under a rock or you planning to check out on some of the upcoming events and probably attend then Unkut Hennessy Hip-hop Awards is here.

They have just announced the nominees and for real from the look of things, 2021 is bigger & better with the likes of Kitu Sewer, Khaligraph Jones, Juliani, Scar Mkadinali and more being included.

We spoke with Ruby V, the founder of Unkut Africa and Unkut Hip-Hop Awards to get the low down on how the journey has been like, what's changed since she began these awards and what to expect on 18th of December 2021.

Karibu sana Micshariki Africa Ruby V. For those who are unfamiliar with the Unkut Hip Hop Awards, kindly take them on a brief history on when the Unkut hip-hop awards started.

Unkut hip-hop awards started officially back in 2019. We had an event at Sands Club, Life Plaza located in Kilimani and it was a beautiful experience, but before that we had done an online Hip-Hop awards in 2018. I don’t think people took it serious, but it kinda blew up and I guess that’s what inspired doing an actual event in 2019.

Unkut Hennessy Hip-hop awards is the first and only Hip-Hop awards we have in Kenya, and you are among the founder members, who are other members who have played a role in this journey that you would like to acknowledge?

Correction, I’m not among the founder members, I’m the founder. Address me correctly (LOL), yes indeed I’m the founder and we do have a panel that usually selects the final list of the nominees. This year’s panel we have Jinx, who is a media personality (Homeboyz Radio, Kiss Fm),we have Ondu Street Lawyer who is the founder of 254 Battle Rap League and also the owner of Back 2 Basics Podcast, Nimoh Futuristic founder of Sauti Za Mabinti, Curtis, a radio presenter at Ghetto Radio for Hip-Hop Republik.

Not forgetting Tela Wangeci, a music journalist at Tangaza & Beda magazines.

So I believe we do have a very tight panel.

What does it personally mean to you to organize an award celebrating and awarding KE Hip-Hop artists & other stakeholders doing justice to the culture on a major platform?

You know it's just shining light on talents, there’s so much talent out here that needs to be celebrated, they need a home so that's the reason we have a hip-hop award show celebrating Kenyan hip-hop creatives.

Following the positive responses to the Unkut Hennessy Hip-Hop Awards 2020, did you notice any other awards event/show following your lead?

Yeah I did see someone did start a Kenyan Hip-Hop Awards. I guess that’s the only thing that I have seen.

2021’s theme is ‘Changing the narrative’, what’s the inspiration behind it?

Well it started off back in the days, hip-hop globally has had like negative connotations to it; from the ghetto or the hood, it’s dirty and hip-hop artists are rowdy, so from that time even when you look at it from the Kenyan perspective back in the days it was like “Guys in the ghetto who rap were mainly a spot for Swahili speakers”, but over time we have seen that narrative change and hip-hop has become more than just rowdy music, we also have turn up music, we have people/stakeholders in the culture pushing conversations around hip-hop such as mental health and that’s really dope. So we as Unkut Africa we’ve been part of changing the narrative.

Last year (2020), you had Hennessy coming in as partners; do you have other corporates interested in supporting this year’s event?

Yes we do have other corporate bodies interested in supporting us. First I gotta shout out Mike Rabar (of Homeboyz Entertainment), he really upgraded us last year. He gave us the most wonderful stage ever and it was really amazing. This year we do have UN Habitat, they have come in to support us. We also we have Trace Radio as our official media partner and we are so grateful for that. We do have Little Cab, Create 2030, not forgetting Psychwell Foundation which is all about mental awareness for the creatives. I appreciate all of them big time for coming through and supporting us and I’m looking forward having more partners supporting us as well.

And of course we have Mike Rabar, HB entertainment as our technical partners.

What’s your take on the current state of KE Hip-hop?

People are really doing their thing, they are trying their best to make it hard as possible.

With the introduction of East Africa category are there any future plans to have Unkut Hip-hop Awards East Africa?

I really don’t wanna talk about that, let’s wait and see what the future holds for us.

Hip Hop being a male dominated field not only in Kenya but the world, what words of advice can you give to sisters out there trying to make it out in the hip hop scene either as an emcee, Dj, blogger or even a hip hop event organizer such as yourself?

The world is yours, do not let your gender bar you from letting the rest of the world experience your greatness. You should definitely come in, hip-hop needs more women, and we need you. If you scared do what scares you anyway. Eventually the world will gravitate towards you at the end of the day.

What are the challenges that you have personally faced in the process of beginning this award?

The challenges are way too many. In the beginning I had to fund the event from my pocket, and when you fund an event most times it gets difficult because you don’t have the endorsements so using my budget it becomes more difficult.

Secondly, the ‘naysayers‘ in Kenyan Hip-Hop, they just don’t feel happy with what I’m doing, something they aspired to do but they are not doing it and of course that takes a toll on your mental health and everything but you know we still out here, we still pushing.

Tell us a little bit about your passion for hip hop for those who don’t know. How did it start?

It started in 2014, when I was an intern at Homeboyz Radio. I went to Hip-Hop Hook-Up, a hip-hop initiative that was organized and hosted by Smallz Lethal at the Sarakasi Dome and Dj Final Kut saw me there and felt like we can do something, so he asked me to talk to John Rabar and tell him I want to be part of hip-hop culture, and that’s what I exactly did. It took me a little bit of time to go because I was just an intern but I got into it. I didn’t know much about  the Kenyan hip-hop culture at that time but I put in the hours ,I learnt about it and yes I kinda became a force in that field.

Apart from being a media personality & event organizer, do you rap too?

No I don’t rap.

The Unkut Hennessy Hip-hop Awards is a yearly event, apart from the awards, what else does the Unkut Africa platform offer?

I think this is something you can check across our social media platforms and actually get to see.

We push mental health awareness; there is a clothing line, Unkut Fit that has just started. Of course I have other major plans so we might revisit that conversation next year and see how it goes.

There are other events we are organizing, just because I have been somehow silent throughout the year focusing on organizing the Unkut Hip-Hop Awards doesn’t mean we don’t have other things we doing.

Unkut Sound Check was happening on a monthly basis before they shut down and it’s pretty visible on our social media platforms.

Take us through the process of picking the winners, how is it from nominations to final awarding of the awards. What has your team done to ensure fairness prevails and that the best wins to avoid accusing fingers about favoritism?

People will always point fingers about favoritism but like I said there is a panel that picks the final nominees and this panel usually checks on their culture currency and impact that you have had. We also check how integrated this person/creative/podcast/online media has been in to the hip-hop culture community, and when it comes to picking the winners we don’t pick them, the fans decide by voting.

Are there future plans of hosting the show in other counties to assist in promoting not only the awards but also the hip hop culture?

I haven’t thought about hosting the event on other counties but we do have the inclusion of artists regardless of where you come from, whether you are from Kisumu or Mombasa. I don’t think we can do something like Kisumu Hip-hop awards, I think we shine a light on artists doing something in those regions and have them included in the hip-hop awards because then again Nairobi is the capital so we hope to centralize everything here but include all those artists from other regions be involved.

What was your motivation and goal when you decided to begin these awards? Are you close to realizing the intended purpose?

The motivation…

In the beginning, Kenyan Hip-hop was only represented as a single category in all those award shows and there are so many people representing hip-hop in Kenya, so I wanted to shine a light on that.

We have realized the purpose and we continue every year. We get new artists joining the list, having roped in the vendors and seeing how their growth is over time. I’m so glad that Unkut is being part of this conversation, KE hip-hop revolution.

It’s really dope to see where we have come from, the artists that we started with in 2016 and seeing other stakeholders coming in and being part of the movement and yes we are growing together. It’s really amazing.

Thanks for your time Ruby V. We wish you all the best during the awards ceremony.

Thanks Micshariki Africa for having me.