Recho Rey’s Transition: A Sexy Conscious Branding and Marketing Effort

Today, a musician’s image is everything. Quality branding is therefore vital to becoming a successful artiste. Branding is the process of developing a strong, identifiable perception of an individual. It is a complex process that involves diving into an artiste’s identity to determine what characterises them.

Branding is successful when it clearly articulates the intended mission. It is a demonstration of a unique identity that separates one from competition.

Hip hop started out as a genre predominantly for men. To this day, it is a male dominated industry and it is therefore extremely hard for female rappers to rise, and when they do it is equally hard for them to become successful.

Many people have therefore come to see hip hop as being a genre exclusively for men because of this male domination. It is thought to be aggressive, masculine and manly. Authenticity in hip hop has been intrinsically tied to masculinity and therefore it is less likely for society to accept female rappers.

The Ugandan music industry has seen the rise of talented female rappers that have gone ahead to become successful. Many of these have started out as tom boys, leaning more towards a masculine brand to best suit the already established standard of the hip hop genre. I would go ahead to say that most certainly than not, it has been a conscious decision to brand themselves in a masculine way in order to fit in.

Artistes like Keko and Recho Rey are vivid examples.

Many successful female rappers have however set out to change this. Rappers like Nicki Minaj, Cardi B, Saweeti and countless other artistes have embraced their femininity and still gone ahead to be successful rappers. They have defied the already established belief that hip hop should be dominated by only males and that female rappers should brand themselves as masculine to be successful hip hop artistes. This has definitely inspired very many female hip hop artistes to maintain a feminine look and still rap.

Musician Recheal Mirembe alias Recho Rey has also hopped onto the trend of female rappers being comfortable in their own skins.

A very obvious transition in Recho Rey’s branding has been observed with the artiste starting her music career out as a tom boy but then starting to dress more feminine with time. When asked in an interview with Record radio about the unmistakable transition in her branding, Recho Rey said she had observed and experienced the pressure on upcoming female rappers to lean more into being masculine just to fit in with the the male rappers.

Female artists from other genres have found ways to shoot more photos than they may release music. Recho Rey is a model so it is normal for her balance her businesses and what other way if not sharing a number of photos much as most tend to be revealing. The sex appeal!

It is difficult now to find older pictures of Rey that seem a little bit male hip hop cliché inspired.

A former associate of Recho, tells us she never ever wanted to ever wear anything that seemed skimpy or short. She was okay with her all jeans and T-shirt look but now she is almost half naked for the camera. She never used to show much skin.

She said she sat down with her management and decided to stand out as a woman and still rap.

She said she made the decision to inspire upcoming/new female rappers to be authentic as their feminine selves and be comfortable in their bodies. It was a decision that was aimed at empowering female hip hop artistes in the industry, not to alter themselves just to fit in but to show up as their authentic feminine selves.

For most her image is more “raunchy” more like the long tried and tested sex appeal that American rappers like Lil Kim, Nicki Minaj capitalized.

What are your thoughts?