“I’M A PERSON OF LEARDERSHIP QUALITY, INSPIRATION & A TRENDSETTER” – ROBERTO SPEAKS ON ADAPTING EARLY TO A CHANGING INDUSTRY
When Roberto featured on PRIME TV’s Yatu Vibes hosted by PMC he shared how he has always been ahead of time adopting progressive and monetisable ways of managing his career 10 years before they became common practice for many artists.
Responding to PMC who sort to find out how the singer copes with moments of self-doubt or rather discouragement despite the widespread admiration and recognition he consistently receives as many people in other countries when asked about Zambian artists, Roberto’s name and his hit song Amarulah always pop up.
The singer said, “I would say it kinda like positions me as a person of leadership quality, of inspiration, a trend setter because sometimes it’s very difficult for people to branch out from the norm and do something different.”
Roberto then continued as he reflected on how he, unlike the rest of the industry, decided to stop bloggers, eg., Zambian Music Blog, Indimba, etc, from uploading his music to their websites because despite the platforms being beneficial, the publicity didn’t come with monetary value.
Roberto, who would support other initiatives such as online music stole Mvesesani and Shawn Kaystar, who created a similar platform, received a lot of backlash for his decisions with people calling him big headed.
“And that was what? 2015, because that was the time when Amarulah came out, when I decided to make that decision and now this is 2025, 10 years later, you tell me, how many artists now are telling you about Spotify, Apple Music, Boomplay, how many?” said the singer, emphasizing his music business seer abilities.
The singer would also stop other people from uploading his music videos on their YouTube channels because they were getting a lot of views compared to his, forcing him to be sharing links from those channels when other artists wanted his statistics further.
He then said, “But today we’re celebrating a lot of artists that will tell you, oh, now I’ve hit 1 million views, 500,000. There are others that are even celebrating 50,000. Let’s not look down on people that are even getting 20,000 views.”
He continued, “It’s a huge achievement, very big achievement. But sometimes, we want to look down on certain people. My point is, I’m happy that we created this aura where people now get to appreciate their content. They’re able to sell their content and make money off their content and it’s important for us to champion such causes because it’s helping the industry grow and I’m really happy to see Zambia music industry grow.”
The singer’s response is a testament of his true visionary self – a leader, inspiration, and trendsetter who made bold, unpopular choices to safeguard the value of his music.
Today, his stand proves he is simply ahead of his time as more Zambian artists celebrate streaming success and ownership of their content.
