By: Samuel G. Dweh (Freelance Journalist)
ABOUT “DJ BLUE”
He is a Disc Jockey (abbreviated “DJ”) and the leading promoter of artistes in the music industry. For promotion of other music artistes, his platform is “Blue Link Records”.
He is also the owner of Hott FM (107.9)—Liberia’s current reigning Entertainment—focused Radio Station on secular music, as well as Gospel Music (on Sundays) He also owns a Television Station, named Hott TV (Channel 12), sharing the same building with the Radio Station. The building is on the top of Broad Street, few meters from the old Ducor Palace Hotel, in Central Monrovia. All these Entertainment channels were established in 2009, two years after the Entertainer returned from the United States of America where he extensively studied the rudiments and channels of “entertainment”.
For aspiring musicians who don’t have money to produce their songs, “Blue Link Records” is a “saviour”.
“I was the youngest person, age 13, among those DJ Blue employed as Disc Jockeys, programs heads, and Station Manager when he opened Hott FM,” Eugene Jones, one of the Station’s longest-serving employees, said to me Sunday, October 29, 2023 when I was preparing this article.
Mr. Bernard Benson promotes other talents (comedy, writing, etc.) for national development. On his promotion of writing, my leadership of the Liberia Association of Writers (LAW) also benefitted from the national development-based “humanitarian gesture” of the Music Guru. In 2021, he gave LAW a free airtime on Hott FM for the Association’s program titled “Writing and Development”.
“I am not into writing, a profession, but I love writing and I am prepared to promote any writing-related project for national development,” Mr. Bernard Benson said to me during my first-time meeting with him for airtime for LAW. Not a day he requested—directly or indirectly—“airing fee” from LAW! The program went off air in its fifth month on the Station Management’s decision to prevent “health risk” by Coronavirus (COVID-19) against the “huge traffic” of employees and programs owners moving into or coming out of the building every day.
“DJ BLUE” ELECTED LAWMAKER (LEGISLATOR)
He ran as an Independent Candidate for Electoral District #17 of Montserrado County in Liberia’s Legislative and Presidential elections on 10th of October, 2023. He won! His popularity—from his outstanding performance records in the Entertainment Industry—and his outstanding “humanitarian actions” towards hundreds of “talented, but poor artistes” gave him winning edge over each of his Legislative rivals in the District (#17)
MOST-DISADVANTAGED MEMBERS’ “BOMBARDMENTS” AWAITIG BERNARD “DJ BLUE” BENSON IN THE LAWMAKING CHAMBERS
He will be Constitutionally installed in office in January, 2023. When he is officially occupied his Legislative seat, majority of his colleagues in the Creativity Industry will be “pestering” (literary bombarding) to do the following: Use part of his personal Legislative salary into the Industry for improvement; Sponsor Bill that will compel the Government to pump “more money” into the Country’s Industry for training /capacity-building (many Liberians’ works on the market are “substandard”, compared to the works of their colleagues of Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, and many other African Countries); and to financially enable Liberian Entertainers to showcase their Country’s “talents” on the Global Stage of Talents Exhibition (International Competition)
Between 2018 and 2023, majority of members of Liberia’s Creativity Industry experienced “hellish conditions”—no money to transform their mental images into reality; those can’t Get the Government’s attention for protection of their products against “criminals” ( “intellectual thieves”) or some top members of the Government’s Anti-Piracy Team are in “business partnership” with the “criminals” (pirates)
The Liberia Movie Union (LIMU), the body of Liberian Filmmakers, may also join the bandwagon of creative organizations requesting for different kinds of assistance from Hon. Bernard Benson. LIMU’s main request may be on payment of rent for the Union’s Headquarters located in a one-storey building adjacent the Headquarters of the Liberia National Police (LNP) on the Capitol Bye-Pass, Monrovia.
“LIMU is challenged,” the Union’s current president, Eddie Mantu Gibson, said to me during one of our intellectual bouts via Messenger (Social Media) in October, 2023.
AUTHOR’S PERSONAL BELIEF:
With Bernard “DJ Blue” Benson in the National Legislature, “Intellectual Theft” will drastically reduce, and all Liberian Entertainers (musicians, Actors/Actresses, Dramatists, etc.) will live economically “succulent” life—similar to the economic life of their colleagues in Ghana, Nigeria, and other African Countries.
“Financially handicapped” ”Professional Writers, like the Author of this article, will also “yearn” for the “personal support” and “Legislative rescue” of Bernard “DJ Blue” Benson—Liberia’s current Leading Entertainment Guru
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Samuel G. Dweh (a member of the Wedabo ethnic group of Grand Kru County) is professional writer (fiction and non-fiction) He is a member of the Press Union of Liberia (PUL), and member and former president (22017-2022) of the Liberia Association of Writers (LAW) He had worked as Proofreader, News Editor, Editor-in-Chief, and Senior Editor-Reporter with seven different Liberian Print Media Institutions (beginning as Proofreader at Daily Observer in 2011) and Reporter-Assistant Editor with one Magazine (IMAGES Magazine owned by veteran Liberian Photo Journalist Mr. Sando Moore) in 2013.
