Ugandans are ready for live music

The spark about world music day last year was the street performances that started at the Watoto Church Roundabout to the National Theater.
A kind of collective performance that went on building an audience from the first set of people that watched the opening cast of the likes of Bataka Squad, Hakim Kiwanuka, Sandy Soul, Undercover Brothers and Giovanni Kiyingi among others.
On Saturday, the festivities were on again, this time without the street performances but a wonderful cast of artistes like Ruyonga, Jemimah Sanyu, Makadem and Sandy Soul/Undercover Brothers.
Supported by the Bayimba Foundation and Alliance Francaise, the day was looking at inviting the public to celebrate genres of music that have not gotten a fair share of media – the sort of performances aimed at introducing Ugandans to a new sound.
What stood out though was the way Ugandans have started appreciating music as a global cultureless language; from the first performers of the night, The Undercover Brothers and Sandy Soul to RFI waard winner Makadem, it was clear that people have learn to listen to music than the language it is performed in.

Most of these performers were either singing in English or other indigenous languages in genres like folk, acoustic and jazz but people kept dancing.
“I think Ugandans are at that place where they are starting to experiment with different music genres,” says Bass guitarist Earnest Otim.
He notes that with the rise of demand for live band performances even from mainstream artistes, the industry has started taking another route and it could easily explain why people were dancing regardless of the language being used.
This didn’t differ very much from what Bebe Cool said was his reason to concentrate on live performances; “you can make as much money with bubble gum music but at the end of the day live and vocalists win.”
To defend his argument, Bebe Cool noted that bubble gum music is easily forgotten when a new song is released unlike the live one which can be played from year to year.
One of Clare Muhindo, a reveler at the world music day confessed she was attending for the first time though was impressed by the immense talent Uganda has, she had seen Daniel Okiror perform for the first time, had no idea of what he was saying but was sure she enjoyed every bit of him on stage.
Ruyonga enjoyed himself on stage though it was Jemimah Sanyu that stole the show; if all local artistes were using just half of the energy that girl uses on stage, the live music scene would be way ahead by now.
World music day was originally a French celebration of music that dates back in 1984, the practice has though been adopted by many other countries that by last year, the day was at least celebrated in more than 300 cities worldwide.

Laba art festival is back this weekend

 

The very first Laba Arts Festival was held at Bukoto Street, then code named, Pot in a Hole, the event was looking at getting locals appreciate art by taking them through the process and above all pushing it down their throats in the best way possible – on the streets.

The festival then moved away to Mackinon streets before finding itself back to the source last year.

This Saturday, the festival is back still at Bukoto street, with a theme, Back to the Future.

Back to the Future can be interpreted in many ways; on one side it invites the festival and its artists to look back to where LaBa! derived from and at the same time to imagine its future.

The reflection can happen as individuals, organizations but also regarding the general developments of Kampala and the cultural sector.

The other side stands for the future in general and certain ‘futuristic’ approaches brought forward in the arts and academics, including Science Fiction, Afro futurism, future technologies and other topic related artistic practices.

Unlike last year though, the festival will be held on a single day and won’t have a spinoff event like they did in Nsambya.

Ife Piankhi performs at Nsambya Grounds

Undercover Brothers

Performers from Congo were amazing

Film: Silent Depression is here

Silent Depression is a film about the connection between depression and technology.
In that way the film addresses ways that globalization with all the fancy gadgets has contributed a big deal to the shift in midlife crisis from 40 to 25 today.
The film is written and directed by George Stanley  Nsamba, and mostly features actors from his Ghetto Films Project.
The amazing thing is that many of them in between 18-23 had no acting background while others were actual street children and women.
The silent film features a spoken word piece by the writer and music by Tsabo D Middletonson of Urban Aksent Music.
The film premieres next Tuesday at the National Theater at 6pm.

Review: Mbamalawo - Navio

As an artiste, you will always be advised to sing in a language you’re either comfortable in or the one that you feel your fans get the message best.
And it explains why only a few English songs by our local artistes have dominated the airwaves, not that Ugandan music lovers don’t understand the queen’s language, most of the times it sung in ways not peculiar to many of us, in fact songs like Bread and Butter by Radio and Weasel and Bebe Cool’s Love you Every day are proof that music delivered and packaged the right way knows no language.
This brings us to Navio, out of nowhere, after shunning his mother tongue for over a decade, he released Mbamalawo, an almost 80% Luga-rap song.
Forget these things where he has the likes of Frida Sonko or Ssegamwenge hooks, in this particular song, Navio sings the chorus and two verses in Luganda.
Of course it could be one of those songs that Navio never wished the earth to see him do considering a 2004 newspaper interview where he said he couldn’t do a song in a language he can’t speak, so what changed the rapper’s mind?
Gravity Omutujju, many think.
Remember when Gravity was just emerging almost three years back, rappers dismissed him as raga artiste while others tried to embrace him, to date, the question of whether he’s or not hip hop has not been settled.
But this has not stopped Gravity from doing what he does and it didn’t deter Navio either. It’s been the sort of arrangement where Gravity had the downtown and the other had the sophiscated uptown.
Now all this came to halt when Gravity visited uptown and stripped Navio off the Buzz Teeniez Best Rap artiste award beating others like Mun*G, Keko and everyone else that had referred to the Broken English rapper as kidandali.
And Mbamalawo could be Navio’s answer, trying to fight and protect what he believes is his birthright.
Navio wasn’t inspired by Gravity to do this song, he was rather forced – inspired songs don’t sound so flat and out of emotions.
We’ve seen artistes do songs in languages they don’t speak but nailing it, for crying out loud at the beginning of the year, one Deena from German sounded flawless on Mumulete and so did Bobi Wine on a Swahili Paradiso, thus Navio had no excuse to carelessly throw around broken Luganda words, he doesn’t sing but mimic the language which is absurd, if it makes him uncomfortable that much, why did he try it in the first place?
Navio's song is an excuse, the punchlines are weak and it suffers all through lyrically, it even becomes worse with the video which has him walking about in a ghetto with fellow 'Uga-flow' rappers Flex Da'paper and someother guy we are sure will not make it.
Seriously after going through his song for about for minutes, the words of Gravity that it will take his concert for Hip Hop in Uganda to get independence make more sence, because at the moment, what many rappers are doing is emulate thus keeping themselves slaves to the Brooklyn kind of rap, which is an American culture.
In Mbamalawo, we see Navio giving in, trying to embrace the Luganda he’s tried to avoid, generally to sum it up, this song is a very big joke.