Kigali’s video jockey carves out his own niche

You may have heard of him or watched some of movies that incorporate his commentaries. Thomas Nkusi a.k.a Young, a famous VJ (video jockey) in Rwanda, has been around and wants to take his talent to another level.Young who was born and grew up in Uganda, speaks fluent English, Kinyarwanda and Luganda. He has worked as a VJ both in Uganda and Rwanda since the age of 17.The 30-year-old VJ incorporates his skills-capturing movie lovers in the country. Young ventured into the business in 1999-after he was inspired by Pal Prophet, a renowned Ugandan VJ.In 2001, Young was offered a job at a video library. He started his own Enterprise called ‘The One Film Production’ in Kigali in 2003, which now has 15 staff.He has introduced some of his employees into the video jockey business and worked on some big projects for organisations such as PSI Rwanda. Early this year, the Dian Fossey Foundation, a gorilla research organisation in Ruhengeri also contracted him to translate the film, “Gorillas in the Mist” into Kinyarwanda.Young believes that the Rwandan movie industry is growing but still has a long way to go.“I appreciate the support from all my fans. The VJ business is something I never knew would turn out to be an important job, because at first, I was doing it for fun,” he exclaims.As part of his future prospects, The One Film Productions plans to expand and venture into movie production business: “We hope to launch our first project early next year.”

Leisure

Kigali’s video jockey carves out his own niche