Kenneth Mugabi’s Kibunomu finally reveals self

 In the song that has made Kenneth Mugabi a vocalist to look out for, Kibun’omu, he seems to sing about lost love that he likens to a shooting star he wants to see again.
He asks the lost love to end the games and simply come home. As he goes on with the plea, the artiste tells the listener how he met this beauty, detailing all the sentiments he holds towards her.
Kibun’omu is a modern song that fuses local instruments including the tube fiddle with an acoustic guitar, kongas and beautiful piano work by Fred Wallace, who has in the past worked with the likes of Mo Roots, Kaz Kasozi, Myko Ouma and Qwela band.
Kibun’omu doubles as the title of Mugabi’s debut album though the song is actually track number five on the 11-track listing.
Released last week at the Qwela Junction: The Crooners, the album is indeed everything Mugabi sold himself to be during the show where he brought the house down with songs Naki and of course Kibun’omu.
He grows from the boy that was mostly a ‘confusion’ between Neo-Soul, Maurice Kirya, kadongo kamu and kidandali when he was contesting at Urban TV’s now defunct singing show, Coke Rated Next.
Mugabi’s Kibun’omu is a sign that he has found himself and even went on to differentiate what he’s selling; of course, he seems to have ditched the kidandali part that was very vocal on his first release Nubuka in 2014, but goes on to embrace all the other elements with grace.
For instance, on many songs he sounds like a Misubbaawa Maurice Kirya that fused the modern with traditional sounds to create his mwoyo genre. In Mugabi’s case, he borrows from Kirya and Neo-Soul, but manages to infuse his music with rich storytelling.
His Kibun’omu, the best track on the album by far, easily has his fans starting out swaying gently to the gentle rhythm, but as he builds to the climax of the song, the same fans would be forgiven for breaking into a nankasa dance. Brilliance.
On songs such as the musically-rich Nambi, he sings about a planned rendezvous with the village belle at the communal well.
It is a song that is relatable with many successful people today who had humble beginning in the countryside with their first crushes and relationships revolving around wells and watering holes. Mugabi cleverly reaches out to that clientele ready for a dose of nostalgia, as well as the others still living that very Nambi life.
Naki is also in that line, only that this time he pleads in frustration with a girl that sends him mixed signals.
That he manages to demonstrate his frustration with Naki more with his voice than in the lyrics, is thrilling.
The entire album was written by Mugabi and he did all his background vocals; on some songs including Naki, he played the acoustic guitar as well as the tube fiddle and on others he even played the keyboards.
Mugabi is a refreshing addition to the Ugandan music scene currently littered with many artistes that cannot play even a single instrument, let alone sing without the help of auto-tune.
Since he was working on a low budget, Mugabi wrote all his music, which in turn affects the album in that there are incidents where the style is monotonous.
The album is more than a befitting debut and you are going to hear a lot about this young man in future.
Kibun’omu has instrumentalists Wallace, Roy Kasika, Kiracho, Happy K, Lawrence Matovu and Ronald Bukenya working together to out a beautiful debut album.

Xenson Senkaaba upstages self at Pro Afro exhibition

At the opening drink up of Samson Senkaaba alias Xenson’s Pro Afro, we could have imagined that he had skipped his own exhibition.
Probably one Uganda’s most diverse artists and artiste, Xenson is a multi-talented act that does disciplines like fashion, installation art, rap music, spoken word and poetry.
On Friday 13, Xenson held his Pro Afro exhibition at Afriart Gallery, amidist speculations that he wasn’t present to officiate his own work.
In fact at the beginning of it all, many thought that he was absent and thus left the burden of explaining his work to the exhibition curator.
However, during the explanation of his work by Daudi Karungi, the curator, his kafuluness, as Xenson calls himself, emerged from the rooms of the gallery dressed in a black shirt, head mask and white trousers, he set into a poetry recitation.
Fumitiriza Kintu, Xenson was talking about the current situation where people are fighting against each other, police hurting fellow brothers and sisters.
The poem suggested that if Kintu came back today, he would cry at the divisions going on among his people – but Xenson wasn’t just talking morals within the people, he was actually talking about the government oppressing its people.
The performance, besides being a surprise was well articulated with elements of spoken word and rap music talking nationalism and his personal journey to prominence.

Talking about people despising their struggle, calling them mad because they were dressed in dirty trousers with a few holes; the performance was such an engaging element that proved that the artist grows as time goes on, for instance, when he bought a soda during his performance, even the guy at the canteen was in shock, he had not anticipated that he would end up being part of the performance.
Just like the work he was exhibiting, the performance too tended to interrogate issues of identity consumerism, human excess and global circulation of culture.
The exhibition Pro Afro explores the Afro hairstyle as a deeper metaphorical narrative on the politics of African Identity; use of African hair and African body tends to look at how the body is used to express beauty and disgruntlement at the same time.
Much as Xenson is one of the artists that never want their work to look similar like the previous one, his latest exhibition had a lot of influence not from his past collection but Michael Soi, the artist that exhibited at the gallery before.

Sembera places Ntale above her contemporaries

“Boy come closer you know that I need you our love is forever and it will never melt away….”
The lines open the song that may after this year define Irene Ntale’s always promising music career, pure music, bass guitar magic, visible kongas and heartwarming lyrics, the artiste manages to silence all those that ever doubted her.
But don’t let the opener fool you - yes, she starts the song off in that funny American accented verse where she mentions ‘You’ as ‘Ya’ but the other part of it is completely mellow and yesterday; she reaches out for all the elements that made music from the 1980s classic putting together bits of soul by Elly Wamala, Afrigo Band with todays’ rhetoric of Bebe Cool and friends; more like a story of a girl that’s becoming a woman she grew up looking upto.
The song doesn’t only announce that the old strumming acoustic guitar Ntale is back but also settles all those weird comparisons of her and Fille, Naira Ali and most recently, label mate Winnie Nwagi among others.
For many of the music lovers, it seemed like Ntale went on a haitus after her zouk fusional hit Nkubukinze, then it seemed like her new bosses at Swangz Avenue where not going to change her that much, in fact, when Alliance Francaise and Gothe Zentrum were closing offices at MacKinnon Street in 2014, she was one of the performers.
But then she was thrown into the whole commercial thing that saw her do many forgettable songs like Gyobera, Olindaba, Gwaliko, On’omwana and Stay With Me among others.
With Sembera, Ntale carefully brings soul to Swangz Avenue and wants to prove that soul and artistry can make money; it’s not the type of those instant hit songs but rather one that will stay with us for a time.
Earlier released days before valentines’ day, the song first received the worst of airplays, word is that bosses at the label didn’t want Sembera to destruct what Nwagi was enjoying with her pink wig thus, chose to literally avoid marketing it.
In fact, Ntare even barely performed the song at shows; actually, she would show up at shows perform a song or two and then introduce Nwagi.
But since releasing the visuals of the song almost two weeks back, the song is finally getting the attention it deserves.
Listening to Ntale’s huskiness sit on the pedigree of talent that represented the instrumentation makes her stand out, she positions herself as that artiste that ventured into the unknown especially among her mainstream friends.
Yet the persons responsible for creating the feel could be Eli Arkis, the producer and Moze Radio, the credited writer but her performance still stands out, especially with a fact that late last year, Radio tried to achieve this kind of feel with Juliana but only ended up with just another ‘good Juliana song’.

DOADOA brings the trade to the arts

As a shopaholic, spending money to go to a distant means a lot and for all reasons, it has to be worth the travel – you can compare it with a trader that buys an air ticket to Dubai or China, they hope to comeback with lots of merchandise.
And that’s the story of DOADOA, Uganda’s only performing arts market place that tends to present performers to different agents like festival organizers, international concerts, promoters and distributors.
Every year, these people converge in Uganda as delegates to look for talent they can book for their events, this year’s DOADOA showcase had delegates from many of Uganda’s outstanding festivals like Bayimba, Milege, Pearl Rhythm and Kelele Ku Nalubale among others, while those from other countries included African Music Festival that happens in London, Kigali Up from Rwanda as well as representatives from Womex in Spain, Sauti Za Busara and Kenya’s Ongea among others.
The list of performers showcasing at this year’s market included Grace Matata, Ze Spirit Band and Dbass Ganun from Tanzania, Gravitti Band, Lulu and Zakaleo, Ricky Na Marafiki and Christine Kamau from Kenya, while Uganda was represented by Milege Acoustic Project, Kenneth Mugabi, Apollo Kagimu and Ruyonga among others.
The very first performance was the Entenga Drum Music Performers, not exactly ready for the booking but simply a fight to have the almost distinct Entenga sound to get an audience, in fact, Prof. James Isabirye, a lecturer of music and drama at Kyambogo University noted that the main aim for the performance was to have the sound heard by this generation, as one of the initiatives to revive the sound.
One of the outstanding performances of the day were on the second and third days, Gravitti Band proved that there are more than one ways of making reggae crisp and African, they play in a way that is inspired by the Jamaican reggae than copycats.
But for many delegates, it may have been Mugabi, for Ugandans, we’ve seen him at Blankets and Wine, Qwela Junction and Pearl Rhythm thus we had an idea of what he’s capable of, during his performance on Friday, the vocalist and guitarist wowed with his playful lyrics, high notes and  mellow sounds.
Yes, he borrows a lot from the Maurice Kirya we listened to on Misubawa but still Mugabi finds a lot of room to describe himself especially with the way his lyrics are scribbled as stories.
With songs such as Nambi and Mumulete, he kept the chair tight audience nodding to him, but it was his favorite Kibunomu that got girls raising their hands, thanks to the perfect team that included saxophone ace Happy K.
Tanzania’s Cultural Arts Center was amazing with the way they fused the past and the future to create a beautiful African sound and so did Ricky Na Marafiki, who have mastered ways of bringing the African to much of their jazz and blues inspired signature sound.
DOADOA ended on Saturday with a showcase by Ruyonga.

Stakes go higher as Doadoa moves to Kampala

In the past, local artistes have had issues with the way Nigerians and South Africans are dominating the continental airwaves like MTV Base and Trace TV.
In their view, since artistes from these countries have the influence and money, they’ve managed to penetrate the continental market because of the airtime given. And that’s where Doadoa comes in.
Doadoa is an East African Performing Arts Market that provides a platform for professional networking and joint learning, bringing together various stakeholders and link people, organizations, businesses, knowledge and technology with a view to create demand and develop a market for the performing arts and unlock the potential of the East African creative industry, making it an important factor for economic, social and cultural development throughout the region. 
Over the past four editions of the market, Doadoa has programmed and connected artistes to bigger things – for instance, when Serabi Band opened the do in 2014, they were little known to many of the people in the audience yet they captured imaginations of everyone.
By the time they finished Sio Lazima, their last song of the night, the delegates from Kigali Up, Sauti Za Busara, Womex and other performance events in Africa and around the world wanted the band at their showcases.
As of now, since Doadoa 2014, Sarabi Band has performed at Sauti Za Busara in Zanzibar, Bayimba International Festival in Uganda, Womex in German and theres a documentary about them in the making.
Unlike the past editions that took place in Jinja, this time round the showcases move to Kampala. The whole market will be happening in three locations, the Uganda Museum, National Theater and Big Mikes.
According to Faisal Kiwewa, the reason to move the market to Kampala was meant to ease everything for the people in Kampala since they had issues of making the long trip to Jinja as well as making it more adventurous for those coming to Uganda specifically for the showcases.
This year the showcases will feature acts from Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.
Entenga Drums Music Performers will open the showcases on Wednesday; this will be after a preliminary session with Drammeh Oko, the organizer of the African Music Festival that takes place in London. Other showcases will be by Coca Cola Rated Next’s alumni Kenneth Mugabi, Grace Matata from Tanzania, Uganda’s Apollo Kagimu and Ruyonga among others.
The whole market event is open to the public at shs50,000/= though the public can pay for only the showcases at shs10,000/= each.