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.

Artistes struggle to reclaim National Theatre

Established in 1959 by an Act of Parliament, Uganda National Cultural Centre (UNCC) best known as National Theatre is struggling to keep its flag high.
In the 1970s and 1980s, it was the epitome of Uganda’s creativity in arts. So, one would wonder, what happened?
Last week, two shows that included a circus and the dance week festival were booked for the same auditorium, both slated to start at 7pm.
The result was two audiences stranded as the show organizers sorted the mess. The circus started at 7-9pm and the later in the night, the festival would take the stage.
Many abandoned the latter show since it was getting late already.
What followed were artistes going to their modern-day “shrink” aka social media, to complain about the poor condition of the place and the way management is handling business.
With the hashtag #SaveUNCC, artistes want a management that will care about art, help the theatre reclaim its former glory as well as enable the government to earn from the arts.
Renowned playwright, actor and founder of Theater Factory Phillip Luswata says the theatre has lost it since the people managing the place barely understand art or what is good for it.
TWO-MAN BATTLE
However, Francis Ojede, the Executive Director at UNCC says Luswata is only making up these things because his Theatre Factory office has been closed over rent arrears.
“We’ve been so lenient with them but we decided that enough was enough and closed them down,” Ojede says.
However, Luswata says he had left the said office a long time ago and had discussed with the management to turn the former Theatre Factory offices into a training centre for new artistes that come to the UNCC.
Pamela Kerakyo, an actress that has performed at the UNCC since 1993 and also a constant cast of the different Obsessions shows, notes that things started going really downhill around 2009. “We came to stage a show and it stressed us, we couldn’t get the space for our rehearsals and at the end of it all, the show was bad.”
Like many other artistes, she believes the reason theatre is failing is because management prioritizes money over art.
“These people rented out the Green Room to Uganda Tourism Board; what is a theatre without a green room?” she says. The green room is the lounge where actors rest between stage appearances. Before the green room at National Theatre was rented out, it was already serving wedding planners more than artistes, as a meeting venue.
Filmmaker George Stanley Nsamba faults the theatre management of knowing little about art that they even don’t believe in its potential.
He says during an arts forum last year, one of the UNCC board members informed them that they had come up with a plan to start a SACCO for artistes to invest in farming since art does not pay.
“As an artiste, I found that insulting,” he said, noting that of late, the management has opted to turn UNCC into a ‘National Wedding Meeting Centre’.
In response, Ojede said hosting wedding meetings is one way of promoting culture.
“Aren’t weddings part of culture? I have no regret in that because as UNCC, we have a role to uphold arts and culture.”
About the theatre
The theater hosts many shows throughout the year, but because they lack consistency, it is hard knowing the active days besides Thursday when Fun Factory hosts the comedy shows.
According to artistes such as Julius Lugaya of Theater Factory and also organizer of the Dance Week Festival, in the glory days of the centre, there was always a lot to look out for from the theatre; for instance, he notes that the Monday Jam Sessions would attract acts including Jamal, Chameleone, Bebe Cool and Bobi Wine. Today, not many artistes want to be associated with the session.
The theater has now gained a reputation as the place where people come to hook up with White partners.
But the problems are bigger; for instance, even when the stage was constructed to be lit up by at least 40 200-Watts lights, less than ten of these are working. Others have since blown and some are missing.
The plywood that makes up part of the stage has been encroached on by ants that can distract a scene especially if they come out during a production.
“There was a time I was attacked by ants in a scene where I was supposed to act dead,” reminisces one actor.
Double Booking
Lugaaya says the theatre’s challenges with the artistes start with double booking, when two or more shows are slated to happen at the same time or day.
Writivism Festival, Kampala Amateur Dramatics Society (KADS) , World Music Day and of late the annual Dance Week Festival have been double booked with other shows.
According to Ojede, the situation during Dance Week was not a case of double booking but rather shows following each other in the same space.
Kerakyo says this kind of attitude is the reason why artistes want the management out.
“When an artiste has booked the auditorium, he/she is not booking a time slot, but the whole day. That way, they can come rehearse, get a feel of the stage and totally get to own it.”
Double booking has had its toll on the theatre; it has been alleged that Kampala International Theater Festival will be moving to Ndere Centre. KADS, who have always had more than six shows at the theatre every year have resorted to having productions in restaurants and alternative spaces.
Muchomo Festival and Amakula International Film Festival have since moved to the Uganda Museum.
Way forward
Ojede says they are pressing government to increase the UNCC budget to ensure that renovations are made; he says they want the theatre to get into production again to start supplying TVs with content.
A petition has since been signed and handed to the Gender Permanent Secretary seeking for a new board and management that will listen and involve artistes.
However, others like Waheedah Mwegale, a filmmaker say dialogue with the current management should not be ruled out.

Oscar Senyonga’s Ugandan art story told

Over a year back, artists almost lost their minds when the president called the arts useless, regardless of the noise that was made on social media, radios or TV, no one from the president’s office came up to address the situation.
Yet, during the just concluded presidential elections, many artists were used to woo voter to the different camps involved.
And they were issues like these that dancer Oscar Senyonga was emphasizing in his Dance Week Festival performance titled Tremble.
Clad in a dark tan trouser and a light blue shirt and a pair of sports shoes, the dreadlocked Senyonga, also a member of Mambya Dance Company starts the performance on the ground, his backdrop is a white house and he’s seemingly enjoying to swim in the sand that is in front of it.
Most of the moves he was doing seemed to come easy off his body, throwing his legs in the air and at times dipping he head in the sand, standing up making gestures like he was enjoying the praise he was receiving.
The opening soundtrack was African folk music mostly played in isolation, for instance, most of the times they only included a solo instrument, a flute, xylophone or thumb piano.

Like an artist, the piece shows at the beginning of the journey, especially when people’s talents have just been discovered, the world is proud of you and they indeed want to show you off; “They will let you dance, draw or even act because it pleases them to tell people your part of such activities.”
He notes that this part of the performance was a representation of his beginnings back in 2006, the reason it was more subtle and laidback was because when he was starting, it was all easy since everyone around him had no problem with him being a dancer.
But as he’s story and the dance progress, the energy changes, we see him become more aggressive sometimes he even had his feet stuck in the sand and he would struggle to retrieve it.
The part of the performance was a sign of the change in attitude, for instance at the beginning of an art journey, children get support when they grow up and try to persue the passion for a living, they get criticized, insulted and the doubters double.
This time the moves were aggressive and his facial expressions were mostly in pain, as if he was struggling not only for space but recognition and a right to co-exist, there was incidents where he would kick the sand s if it was  waste only to end up treasuring it later.
“Sand was used as a collage because it’s that one ingredient that is used to build many of the fancy structures we have in this country, yet the people that extract it are at the bottom of all circles,” he said.
He connected the sand notation to that of the arts, saying that people use music, dance or visual arts for recreation and communication purposes, yet they turn around and trash artists as worthless.
The performance was timely especially with a fact that the Saturday Dance Week performances had to be delayed an hour and half later after the theater management double booked with a circus show and later advising the festival organisers to do their ‘thing’ in the gardens.
“Even a fact that we were double booked proves that art is considered useless even by the people that get their paycheck directly from the arts,” he said.
Much as the moves were out of this world, the message was worth every minute and there was no better way to finish it off than a sound bite talking about art shaping the society yet being passed off as useless.
It wasn’t surprising Oscar got the audience on its feet.

Fabrice breaks dance boundaries at Festival openning

He got on a plane from France to open Uganda’s premiere dance festival aptly known as the Dance Week Festival.
Many didn’t turn up to see how graceful his moves would be, but to look and snare at festival organizers’ for always opting for foreign acts to open such shows instead of choosing them.
However in more than a way, Fabrice Lambert proved why someone spent on that air ticket – his one and half performance, became a class for many of the dancers that were around.
He is a rather non-conventional dancer that has embraced the evolving world allowing it to influence his art, process of creation and execution.
Thus, unlike many dancers that have always concentrated on the dance moves, coordination and at times their smartness, Lambert was shamelessly tearing all this apart – for instance, his first performance had him naked technically naked but only disguised in a body tight that covered his body and face but left nothing to imagination.
Dancing from one side of the National Theater entrance to the other, he made sure that his performance leaves a mark – at one point you could have him slither on the ground and at other times he would imitate a monkey.
It was a more sober performance compared to the 2015 spontaneous sessions that saw hip hop dance styles merge with those of dancehall or reggae and they were more accessible and digestible – one didn’t have to be a scientist to get what dancers were trying to say; that is if they had anything to say anyway.
Lambert’s opener was different though, creating illusions in people’s minds and most of them leaving with a task of interpretation.
His first performance was inspired by a snake in its skin saying that much as it doesn’t wear anything, people have never perceived it as naked, in fact, it was one of the major reasons the routine was done from outside, so as to interface with nature.
But the second performance he titled Gravity was the most captivating one, from the way his team manipulated the lights and intended water logged stage and a white screen backdrop – the light would hit the water on stage and then reflect on the white background creating water ripples images.
It was quite a scientific approach to the art as the dancer always kept in synch with the light and thus managing to manipulate it to reflect that his body was turning into things like a flying man, an athlete or a melting ice bag – referred to it as dancing with the surrounding.
He notes that with that performance, his work started with him creating a good relationship with the different kinds of energies, the outcome of the dialogue between the energies is what we saw through the reflections on his white background; “the dialogue between light and the shadow represent the power to fly or do other things.”
Julius Lugaya, the festival director noted that dance is still a relevant art form and that’s why they’ve curated Dance Week for thirteen years now. But even when they are doing their best, the challenges still exist; “Dance doesn’t have an audience.”
For instance, the free of charge opening act had a good attendance, but when people were asked to pay and see the rest of the performances in the auditorium, many chose to leave or simply stay around and drink.
And the theater’s incompetent management doesn’t help things at all, in the past, they’ve had to shift different dance events to smaller places because there has been a double booking, for instance during this edition of Dance Week, a circus show was booked to happen in the auditorium at 7:30pm on both Saturday and Sunday, the same days had though been previously booked by Dance Week organizers.
As a result, many Dance Week fans that showed up earlier for shows ended up leaving after waiting for so long.
The festival ended on Sunday and was graced by other prominent dancers like IDU, Uganda’s representatives at Kenya’s televised dance show Sakata Mashariki, Dance Theater from Makerere, Faisal Damba and Papy Kikuni Victor from DRC among others.
Credits
Photo by Samson Baranga

Sheebah, Nwagi benefit from Tubonga Nawe drama

In October 2015, an all-star cast of artistes Bebe Cool, Chameleone, Radio and Weasel and Rema among others came together and recorded a song endorsing the NRM candidate and current president Yoweri Museveni as the best choice for the 2016 elections.
Of course the public would react, calling them money minded, greedy and the last coming with a resolution that they were going to boycott the artistes.
Much as the idea to boycott the artistes was scoffed at, those involved on the project, now popularly known by different names like Special Twelve or the Yellow Twelve, have not had it easy for the past few months.
For instance, even when he had all reasons to give, it’s openly thought that Bebe Cool had his East African Carnival scrapped this Easter season because he had predicted doom. But it’s not just him, his collegues on the Tubonga Nawe anthem like Radio and Weasel or Haruna Mubiru have had to endure concert flops in the diaspora.
Bebe has still been a subject of social media attacks and at the beginning of this month, things went from his wall and tagging to reality when fans hurled insults at him and his Gagamel team when they showed up for the Uganda Cranes and Burkina Faso game at Nambole.
But amidst the tension, some artistes are actually making a killing – With many of the Tubonga Nawe crew in hibernation; it has given group artistes a chance to be the playing mouse now that the cats are into hiding.
Winnie Nwagi has been highly looked as that one artiste that has benefited from Iryn Namubiru’s scarcity. During the tension that has seen people call Namubiru and Juliana Kanyomozi names for praising the incumbent, Nwagi has managed to slowly encroach on their market with three remarkable songs, Kibulamu, Science alongside King Saha and the runaway hit Musawo.

Besides winning a couple of awards at the beginning of the year, the songstress has curtain raised on a number of shows and has enjoyed quite a number of appearances on media.
From the same camp like Nwagi, Irene Ntale is having a good run too, just over the weekend, she got the audience at the Friday Night Lights Basketball tourney dancing and eating out of her palms which was a contrast of Mun*G,  whose shine was stolen a little reveler two weeks back. 
But it is Sheebah Karungi that must be having the time of her life, in a period of three months, the crazy girl has managed to get more than four songs trending.
She kicked off the year with Ndiwanjawulo, Wantama followed them up with Nsekula alongside Fefe Busi and last week she released her long awaited single and video Nkwatako which has received lots of rave reviews even when it was released in the same week like Bebe Cool’s African Girl.
Amidst the boycott other artistes have managed to clean their social media image which has seen them improve in the number of followers, for instance, the survey done by TechJaja.com, an IT website, Bobi Wine currently has one of the fast growing celebrity pages and by February, when their research was published, his numbers had shot up by 1167, Ntale though also was performing even way better with 1578 likes.
One Arnold Zziwa noted that before the whole political drama, he cared less about what Bobi Wine posted but now, he follows and even shares his posts; “You would realise that even his space in the news is changing, these days he makes it to page two in dailies,” he says.
Since he came out to release songs like Situka, Bobi Wine’s fame has surged, he held a sold out Easter Monday show at Busabala and he’s in plans to dare Nambole stadium for his annual show.
He has been interviewed by BBC, CCTV and has also been on the cover of the Independent Magazine alongside heading the safe water campaign for children in Karamoja that culminated into the Viva Con Agua We Love YoUganda Festival, a campaign that Bebe Cool was a face of previously.
Some have though dedicated Bobi Wine’s good performance to a fact that he has of recent hired the services of Ann Whitehead, a communication specialist to improve his image both online and in the traditional media.
Of course with many of the Tubonga Nawe artistes not releasing music, they have given Ugandans a chance to move on without them, and much of this is visible on local music sites where the likes of Nwagi, Sheebah and Maro dominate their charts; on www.howwe.biz, the most popular audio plays are from Nwagi, Sheebah, Pallaso and yes, Bad Black among others.
HiPipo’s chart leaders are not that different besides a fact that the songs are, for example Sheebah appears in the top ten with Nsekula as opposed to Nkwatako with other artistes being Navio for his Ganda influenced Njogereza, Bobi Wine for Dembe.
However, even when the cards are still against them, many seem to be dusting off, for instance Chameleone has since released his single Double Trouble and much as it is struggling at the moment, it is thought it will pick up, Namubiru has redeemed herself with two releases in two weeks, one being a collaboration with Maro, Bebe Cool’s African Girl video premiered on MTV Base last week and Rema alongside Aziz Azion have too released their long awaited Oli Wakabi.
Will these songs work even with an impending swearing in?
As one artiste puts it, it will all come down to what Bebe Cool posts at that time.

Lantern Meet’s Poetry Will Warm Us puts the love and art on the spot

Even when our votes are rigged
And we are sinking like a stone,
Our Poetry will warm us….
Well the line is a personal improvising to rhyme with the closing poem from the Lantern Meet of Poets show that took place over the weekend at the National Theater.
Dubbed Poetry will Warm Us, it was a show that broke many of the rules – well not in a ridiculous way but it was that do where the beauty of art took center stage as opposed to delving into all the things affecting the society; bad governance, social evil and all those other things.
On the contrary though, the Lantern Meet of Poets put up a show that was looking at addressing love but above all, the importance of art in our daily lives and thus the title, Poetry Will Warm Us.
In the working title, poetry was used to represent the different arts; music, visual arts, poetry, spoken word or theater that people usually fall back to when they are facing difficulties in life.
The show that kicked off at about 7:30pm, slightly later than the announced time but it was no crisis. Like all their shows, they always choose to start with a monologue that tends to set the mood for entire recital, the past editions have all been done by intellect comedian Daniel Omara.
His monologue explored a number of issues ranging from the raging poverty that everyone is blaming on the government, the stolen election, Besigye’s arrest – the fascination with his driver who is never arrested even after driving him to a riot, Tubonga Nawe artistes boycott and most exciting one about the new kid on the block, Winnie Nwangi.
But it was the recital that actually took the day; the set was designed as a park – seats, plantations, imaginary water and an art piece in the background.
Directed by Solomon Manzi, the show was curated to reflect the three stages of a relationship starting from the dating to breakup or marriage for the others.
Here they recited poems like Yellow Fever, Maria Rosa and Kanyanje among others – most of them were hinged around finding love or convincing that special girl to take you for who you are.
Much of the poetry of the night had been written by Ann Linda Namuddu, Manzi, Francis Asiimwe and Jason Ntaro among others.
To make things less clattered on the stage, they chose to dress all the male cast in black and the females in white, according to Esther Namuli the Costume Designer for the production, the colors were a representative of the divide in ideas men and women usually have about relationships but neither of them was dark or evil.
“It was also a way of getting the audience’s attention instantly.”

Unlike the past shows where much of the recital and stage design was abstract, this particular show was rather direct and easy to understand, Aki Abaho, the Producer, noted that it was simply a show about love; “we went through our poetry achives and realized we had a lot of material about love, yet we’ve only done one show about love and that’s how this recital was born.”
She notes that they wanted to get people from the political tension they have had to accommodate for the past few months and thus they had to deliver such an accessible production.
The show was put together in three weeks though the selection had happened way earlier, since many of the performers are not professional actor and in this case most of them having professional lives elsewhere, rehearsals according to Manzi were limited.

Initially he says the show wanted to look at politics, love and art differently, but seeing that they would be many, they choose to focus on love and just pitch other topics around it.
Poetry will Warm us comes as the last piece, written by Manzi and performed by Latifah Mutesi, it comes after the heartbreaks, the cheating, irreconcilable differences and bitter fights, it was stressing a fact that even when we annoy the hell out of each other, we still go silent and listen to that song, watch that film our listen to that recital for healing.

Am Happy with my Login replacement - Robin Kisti

And we are back, this edition of the Review focuses on the bubbly Robin Kisti, she talks to us about Lifestyle TV, why she left Login and of course her next move. We are not spoiling it for you so just click here to read your copy online or go here to download a pdf copy. Hope you enjoy reading.

Inaugural Short film festival set for next week

Most of the times, success of a film industry is measured by how many features or full length films have been produced.

In places like Uganda where only a few are released, they will be quick to judge the industry non-existent.

However, in the backdrop of any feature film like Bala Bala Sese, Boda Boda Theives or Wako that are released, there are more than ten short films that are released online, or in smaller gatherings that the greater population of Ugandans never get to know of.

And this is why the Kampala Short Film Festival that will debut next Tuesday will be a big deal; the do will celebrate the best Ugandan short films that were released in 2015.

According to Moses Serugo the organizer of the festival, it’s meant to celebrate short films since they usually never get a chance at theatres, cinemas and neither do they make any money for the people behind them.

The selected films are diverse as far as subjects and style is concerned, some like Silent Depression tackle issues to do with loneliness created by social media and technology advancement, others like Wanda look at early sex problems while others like Jinxed bring on drama with a girl whose night becomes hell as she meets one misfortune after another.

The festival will take place at the National Theater on 5 April and admission is absolutely free of charge.

Other films showing include award winning In Reality, Trash Cash, Mirror, Drawn Together and A Dog Story among others.

   

"East Africa can stand up to Nigerians" – Octopizzo

On his way to Kampala, many of his fans in Kenya kept their ears on the ground to pick what their boy would tell the media.
He was one of the performers at the just concluded We Love YoUganda Festival that took place on Saturday.
And while talking to The Observer after his energetic performance, the rapper went through a number of issues that involved African music, Kenya and charity.
He noted that performing at We Love YoUganda was a big deal for him since he believed in the cause they are pushing for – creating positive change by providing safe Water for all people. In fact, in the line of positive change, Octopizzo is a youth ambassador for UNHCR and last year launched the Octopizzo foundation whose mission is to support young people who exist on the margins of the society.
“The foundation aims to nature young people in the areas of sports, theater, music and lots of other fields,” he said.

However while talking about music, he noted that he loves what Ugandan artistes are doing; “unlike Kenya that lacks an identity, Ugandan artistes have something that their audience easily relates with.”
He adds that in Kenya, almost everyone is doing what interests them; “I can do rock or Jazz, we don’t have that sound you can call Kenyan” though, he also notes that much as a common sound is easily loved by the local audience, it may also be the problem that has hindered Ugandans from crossing borders.
Much as this was his first performance in Kampala, the artiste who like his co festival headliner Bobi Wine hails from the slums of Kibera noted that he was already in talks to work with different Ugandan artistes; “I have a song with Lillian Mbabazi, Something for you, and I’ve already worked with Sheena also an exciting upcoming Ugandan act.”
In fact, he wants to take Sheena under his stewardship to see her become a big East African act sometime.
Last month, Octopizzo celebrated making eight years in the Kenyan music industry and is mostly looking at crossover success for the next eight years and building a legacy; “When you look at the commercial music scene in Kenya, people produce music that rots in months, I want to make music that won’t fade.”
On whether East African music’s existence is threatened by the popularity of the Nigerian sound which is being sampled by many artistes, he notes that it won’t be easy for Nigerians to wipe the East African region clean; “Right now their only advantage is the clean production that obviously beats ours,” he says adding, “If Bobi Wine, Bebe Cool and Chameleone can package their music for a bigger market, we can send Nigerians back home.”
Octopizzo, is quite known for making blunt statements; earlier this year, he called Kenyan hip hop dead that people always have to wait for him to drop something in order to counter attack, though all this was happening almost a month after belittling Kenya’s Bingwa Music Awards for giving the Come Back of the Year Award.
He noted that he has not been out of music and has not stopped touring and releasing new material thus, he’s not making a comeback when he has been around, and instead, he suggested the award should have correctly gone to Wahu.

City Remixing photo exhibition appreciates Kampala

Rumanzi  Canon's picture of the High Court

Rumanzi Canon’s photography at the ongoing City Remixing photo exhibition at the Margaret Trowell School of Industrial and Fine Arts Makerere University is quite a sight.
It’s mostly that place where new media and technology meets creativity; most of his pieces on display can easily pass for an editing manipulation, Photoshop or all those gimmicks that have been presented by a laptop in the right hands.
But Rumanzi’s creations are merely art and imagination, timing and a play with the exposure, he zooms out of what the historical photographs show, making places into planets, expanding framed views in panoramic images, shooting, as he calls them ‘Holes in the world’.
City Remixing presents photographs made of and in Kampala through time, as seen by 5 different photographers. It shows and wants to make us think about progress and development of Kampala, and the possibilities and limitations of photographic visualizations of urban environments at large.
In Rumanzi, it’s mostly experimental playing around with as many setting to discover new things, more presenting the same city we’ve grown up in a different point of view.
Dr. A.T. Schofield was a missionary and physician who worked under the Church Missionary Society in Uganda during the first half of the 20th century. An amateur photographer, he documented Kampala, events and places based on his social surroundings and interests.
Schofield took pictures of such iconic structures like Namirembe Cathedral, Rubaga Cathedral and Barclays Bank among other places.
According to a press release, part of Schofield’s photographic legacy has been donated to the Africana section of the main library of Makerere University and digitized by History in Progress (HIP) Uganda, also the organizers of the City Remixing exhibition.
Eng. M.W. Wambwa, an engineer with a soft spot for photography and journalism, he documented Kampala in the pre-independence days.
Elsadig Mohamed from Sudan, is a photographer and filmmaker, his photos in the exhibition have a shifted focus, at times blurred and hard to tell.
Luuk van den Berg a Dutch student at Minerva Academy in Groningen was invited to re-photograph some of the historical images.
The exhibition is one of the activities that lead to the launch of the fifth volume in the Ebifananyi book series, developed and designed by Andrea Stultiens.
Stultiens is a researcher, photographer and educator from the Netherlands, a co-founder of HIPUganda, she has been working in Uganda since 2007, trying to understand and relate to a culture far from the one she grew up in.

Queen of Katwe first look is mind blowing

For many Ugandans that make Hollywood their own business, Queen of Katwe is that one movie they are indeed looking out for; for starters, it’s a real life adoption of Phiona Mutesi, a teenager from Katwe that took the chess world by storm.
During the just concluded Amakula International Film Festival, the director of Queen of Katwe, Mira Nair held a discussion with film enthusiasts and film makers, it was an interactive session that was meant to inspire as well as uplift anyone with a dream of telling stories using the lens.
Citing the films she has worked on like Mississippi Masala, Monsoon Wedding and Kamasutra among others, she noted that the best way she worked on many of the projects successfully was because she organized and sorted out all that had to be sorted out in time.
Born in Rourkela, Odisha in India, Nair always had an eye for storytelling, in fact she used drive to the city to listen to a story teller; “The idea of bringing people together without props or cameras but just your story was fascinating.”
However, the most exciting part, which was totally a surprise of the interaction, was when Nair said, she had something for us and those were fifteen minutes in form of a scene from Queen of Katwe staring Madina Nalwanga, Lupita Nyongo and David Oyelowo.
The scene starts off in the market where an annoyed Phiona (Nalwanga) seated alongside Harriet Mutesi (Nyongo) are watching her brother dance to a Luganda rap song.
In walks a rather descent but lousily dressed Robert Katende (Oyelowo), the director of Sports Outreach Kampala and Phiona and the brother’s chess coach.
He was pleading with Harriet to let Phiona and her young brother go for a national chess tournament that was taking place at Kings College Buddo.
It sets us to a number of beautiful shots including one of Katende bargaining with Harriet to let him take the kids particularly set with in piles of wood and a view of Lake Victoria in the background.
It is surprising how Luganda adlibs easily go off the two’s tongues especially with Oyelowo’s Katende using our normal begging tone and terms like ‘nawe’ or ‘nyabo’ in his speech.
Lupita too had mastered Harriet and her few years at Maisha Film Lab, owned by Nair herself could have paid off as she spoke with that uncertainty many of us possess while speaking a foreign language.
Nair says that the market was met to be done in the Katwe market but opted for Ggaba since it had beautiful scenery of the lake and as well provided the artistic feel she was looking for.
In fact, the wood pilled was supposed to be bought by different city wood distributors but noting that it would create a great shot, the production had to buy and make sure it stays put for the two days the scene was shot.
But the real star of the scene could have been the two year old baby, one Ivan Jacob. According to Nair, he was cast because he was seen crossing the road by himself; but more to that – “I cast him because he looked like the brother of Phiona and easily looked like he could be Lupita’s child.”
In fact before production, Lupita used to visit him over the weekends and that’s how he got used to his onscreen family.
“Ivan obviously had no lines in the film but he kept creating his own lines and he brought the house down with them,” she says.
In this scene, when Katende walks off with Phiona and her brother, Ivan’s character looks at them leaving and mummers; “ehh bandesewo.”
Unfortunately, during production, Ivan’s mother ran off to Dubai and now leaves with Nalwanga her onscreen sister.
According to Tim Crothers’ book, Queen of Katwe, which the film heavily adopts, it had been hard for Katende to secure a slot for the Outreach children to participate in the tournament since many officials at Kings College thought slum kids would come with a lot of issues – especially diseases.
It plays out, at least in the fifteen minutes especially when a chess teacher portrayed by former news anchor Peter Odeke, informs those around that they had underprivileged children in their midst.
The attitude in this scene is one many Ugandans that have been to school easily associate with, either as the victim of such treatment or the one dishing the treatment – it was like those kind of schools competition where kids from high end schools come to deliberately under look their less privileged colleagues.
After the screening, much as they were only fifteen minutes, the director got a standing ovation, as some people were fighting back tears.
She promised they will have a special screening in Uganda when the film premiers in September.
And following the backlash of the so white Oscars, Entertainment Weekly, E! Online, Independent UK, LA Times and many other publications have already tipped Queen of Katwe to be a strong contender at the 2017 Oscars.
In fact, even Disney is positioning it as an Academy possible shot since it has each and everything Hollywood has been criticized for ignoring in the past; they have a female director from India, making her a person of color, a three black people in the lead roles, Nalwanga, Nyongo and Oyelowo.
In fact, among the individual awards that maybe up for grabs next year, the Independent UK tips Nalwanga as the new comer to watch citing that she may easily emulate her onscreen mother Nyongo who too won an Oscar as a newcomer.