Today is the final of the music competition organised by the local brewery. Primus Guma Guma Superstar. I want to go there and Emmanuel will accompany me. The venue is the stadium, or more precisely, a fenced area in front of the stadium. Security is tight, I heard, because there will also be an American star. There are already many people gathered around the stadium. I give Emmanuel the money to get tickets. He wants us to get VIP tickets, because the normal area will be too crowded, he says. We pass the security and enter the VIP area, just in front of the stage. Well, at least now it really isn’t crowded, while the area behind us is already fully packed with bodies. We wait. We wait for a long time. A band enters the stage to do a soundcheck and we are moving closer to secure good positions. It is getting dark. Officially, the event was supposed to start at 4pm. We arrived at 5 pm. It is now past 6 pm. ‘For African time, you add three hours’, Emmanuel says. Even at 7 pm they don’t start the show. I understood that they wanted to wait until it is dark, but now my impatience starts to gain the upper hand. Vouchers for free drinks are distributed among the VIP audience. The first group of people have left the stage and others are now coming with new cables, connecting microphones and monitors. Didn’t they just check all that? A moderator shouts at the crowd that has become bigger and bigger: ‘Are you ready for the show?’ The response is massive cheering, but the show doesn’t start. With each announcement, I get more impatient. A DJ entertains the audience and everybody is enjoying the music and dancing. Another band comes and does another soundcheck. Finally, the singing starts. Two guys and a girl, who are the background singers, each sing one song on their own. I don’t know who they are, maybe they were also contestants in the show who were thrown out earlier. A guy in a white jacket jumps on stage accompanied by cries among the spectators. It is now so crowded that there is no space to move and I stretch my neck to see something although we are close to the stage. Two girls next to me are crazy dancers and don’t mind punching those around them. I think that this is now the first finalist, but I am wrong. I notice that when I hear him mentioning the names of the finalists. He is actually the winner of the last Guma Guma Superstar episode, the very first one. At least it is the show now. It has started. I don’t know what time it is when the first finalists finally appears. King James. Massive cheering. The girl behind me screams as if the world is ending. Then the second finalist, Jay Polly. More screaming from a girl to my right. We are directly at the fence on the right side of the area and she is hanging her arm over the fence, trying to see as much as possible. A security guy knocks his truncheon against the fence to make her back away, but she is not impressed by that and after a while, the security guy stops coming back every few minutes. I don’t like Jay Polly’s music. He is rapping and not even performing on his own but has three other guys with him. I am getting tired and uncomfortable, the girl’s dancing bottom in front of me constantly pushing me back where there is no space for me to retreat to. It is too loud for me to say or understand anything, so I use my phone to communicate with Emmanuel. ‘How long do you want to stay?’ He says something. ‘Until the end?’ Yes. I don’t really see that he is enjoying himself very much. Only some songs stimulate him to raise his arms like the others and sing along. It is the DJ’s turn again. Especially popular songs I know from Germany, from the radio and parties, lead to outcries from the audience, but also African songs I have heard on the radio myself. Another break while another soundcheck is done on the stage. The same guys as the first group at the beginning of the day. ‘Are you ready for Jason....?’ I don’t get the name. That must be the American singer who is supposed to perform tonight. ‘Make some noooooise!’ The crowd gives that noise, but the announced star doesn’t appear. Instead, it is the DJ again. Finally, a guy jumps on stage and the spectators respond with deafening shouting. I don’t recognise him, but I recognise his songs. Jason Derulo. So he is a real star. I wonder how he ends up in Kigali, performing at the Guma Guma superstar final. It has always been his dream to come to Africa, he says. I stretch my neck to see what he is doing on stage and use my camera to get a closer look. I love my zoom. The negative feeling from earlier has vanished, and I dance with the others around me. Jason Derulo takes of his shirt and dances now in his black vest. He has a good body. He gets girls from the audience on stage to let them dance there during one of his songs. Is that common among these performances, I wonder, thinking back to Chameleone. He is now singing topless. His last song, then he is gone although I didn’t see how he actually left the stage. The DJ takes over again until the moderator from earlier comes back to announce the winner of the competition. He plays ‘I love my life’ and I am happy. I am in a good mood now anyway and this song puts me in a positive mood every time I hear it. What more do I want right now? A white man, probably a guy from the brewery company, opens the envelope and announces the winner of Guma Guma superstar, season 2 with a rather bored voice. King James. He is immediately drowned out by the moderator and the crowd. The girl next to me buries her face in her hands. However, it doesn’t take long for her to recover and she seems to accept Jay Polly’s defeat as she dances again when King James sings one of his songs. Fireworks. Slowly, people are leaving and some space opens up around us. Emmanuel and I leave, too. We want to avoid being washed out with the main crowd. There is no way of getting a motorbike right outside the fenced area, so we follow the stream of people walking down the road. There are so many people. The first drivers we talk to demand a very high price, of course. There are too many customers around. The second couple suddenly drive away. The police is coming. A bit further away, we finally find two drivers to take us home. The price is still high, but I don’t really mind right now. It is 11pm when we arrive at the house. Beatrice is still awake, she probably waited for us. The TV sends the repetition of the show. We have food and then go to bed. I can feel in my legs that I was standing in pretty much the same spot for many hours, but still - it was a good night.
