Does hip-hop belong to Africa? And how has American rap music itself embraced Africa in its lyrics and metaphors? Serubiri Moses reflects on these questions, while at the same time tells the gripping story about Ugandan rapper Cyno MC’s, about his life-threatening heart surgery and how hip-hop helped him through it.
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Category: Interviews
African societies, since time immemorial, have always been moved by the sound of the drum. Communication and celebration with percussions were norms within our numerous cultural contexts. Drums in African traditional societies were sources of identity that distinguished various social groupings. Samuel Lutaaya has interviewed Brian Magoba to learn how drums have been used in contemporary pop music compared to traditional music.
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Winning an award at a big fashion show like the Vancouver Fashion Week can be a daunting task. More so if you are little known at home, barely in your thirties and your siblings think you are nothing more than a tailor. By far, his claim to being known locally as a fashion designer was a small stint at the Bayimba International Festival 2010 where his collection came out as the best. This is Ras Kasozi’s road to international fame, and it started humbly.
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Amakula International Film Festival in Uganda has been in existence for the past 8 years. Samuel Lutaaya has interview two industry players with different views about Amakula’s impact. Dilman Dila can not see how Amakula is promoting Ugandan films within Uganda, while the festival manager Nathan Kiwere thinks Amakula has played an instrumental role in building capacity of filmmakers.
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Adong Judith Lucy is an artist that stands tall in the rain and tells it like it is. Her recently concluded production, Silent Voices was presented at the National Theatre in Kampala to full houses for most of the twelve showings. Samuel Lutaaya interviews her for Startjournal.
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For poetry lovers and those who wish to improve in both their writings and performances, African Writers Trust provided an opportunity to interact with one of Africa’s leading poets. The Ghanian poet Nii Ayikwei Parkes visited Uganda and shared his knowledge with the locals.
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Chris Mugarura is a Ugandan comics artist, striving hard to enrich the comics industry and trying to change people’s stereotypical perceptions towards comics. He believes he can do this through his masterful comics skills and compilations.
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On 17th April 2012, in Doha, Bruno Ruganzu was announced winner of the TEDx competition TED Prize for City 2.0 at the TEDx Summit in Qatar. City 2.0 is about creating ideas that can change your city. Innovation, education, culture and economic opportunity were its key fundamentals. Among the five finalists from Egypt, Canada, South Africa and Pakistani, Bruno had only two minutes to raise the Ugandan flag high.
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Uganda, the state, will be 50 years old on October 9. That is the history book record. However, a private photo collection that started life as a Facebook archive venture is challenging that version of events. Most times, unintentionally. By the simple act of dredging up visual records from 100 years ago of life in the area that is now geographically registered as Uganda, History in Progress Uganda (HIP) is forcing a re-think of what it means to be Ugandan and where Uganda come from.
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At the beginning of February, an unusual concert was staged at the Goethe Institute in Kampala, headlined by Nneka, the world renowned young African icon. She was accompanied by five Ugandan female artists, including Ife Piankhi, a popular poet and jazz singer in town, and Tshila, a crossover Afro Soul icon. Serubiri Moses has talked to these two artists and Roshan Karmali about whether artists’ gender really matters.
Read More >>Faisal Kiwewa, Director of Bayimba Cultural Foundation, Adong Judith Lucy, a renowned playwright, film maker and arts practitioner, John Bosco Kyabaggu, production manager at the Uganda National Cultural Centre, Ronex Ahimbisibwe, a renowned visual artist, Maurice Kirya, musician and brainchild of the Maurice Kirya Experience, and Joel Sebunjo, acclaimed Ugandan world music artist, all share some thoughts about 2011 and 2012.
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Next out in the category the Story Behind an Artwork, we have interviewed one of the leading contemporary Ugandan artists, Joseph Ntsensibe, about his work ‘Disappearing Forests’ (2011). Read about why and how Ntensibe created this one piece of art which responds to the topic ‘environmental protection’.
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Uganda has more than 50 tribes. Each of these has a dance that defines them. It is from this rich pool that dancers like Sam Ibanda can create great dances to weave into contemporary routines. Other dancers have introduced traditional dance into their patterns to great effect. Ibanda has learnt well that when he travels out to present to an international audience, he will have to be original. Contemporary dance from Uganda must be truly an identity.
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Carola Tengler is a ceramicist who spent her career making and teaching pottery in Austria, her home country. In 2003, she joined the Vision for Africa project in Mukono district, Uganda. Carola’s vision is to bring value and expertise to the traditional African forms and patterns as manifested in the field of pottery. She argues that there is a traditional African form and design that is unique to Africa, and therefore must be uplifted and used to create unique works and not works that are trying to copy other cultures’ ideals.
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The story Butterfly Effect was written by Beatrice Lamwaka, and was short-listed for the 2011 Caine Prize for African writing, a prize that many writers on the continent aspire to win. The nominaton has strengthened Beatrice’s belief in herself as a writer. However, when she writes, she says it is important she does it without the conscious nagging of being a short-listed winner of this prestigious prize.
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Photography in Uganda has for many years been shrouded in darkness. It is an aspect of visual arts rarely talked about and largely thought to be a preserve for journalists. Even then, photo journalists are never celebrated as such because they are often accused of treating their subject matter as objects; often doctoring the images to suit their taste and ambitions. To reverse this trend, Arthur Kisitu started the Mu Katanga project which among other things was to show the right picture of Katanga; with no distortions whatsoever.
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Margaret Nagawa has had many roles and responsibilities participating in Uganda’s fine art world. She has been a student of fine art, a maker of fine arts, a curator, a teacher, a promoter, and a collector of fine arts. And now again, a student of fine arts! Margaret currently lives in Ethiopia but is working on her PhD from Makerere, writing her dissertation on ‘Visual Arts Dissemination and Cultural Translation in East Africa’.
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The brand named Ronex is built upon continuous experimentation. Every waking hour – and sometimes during sleep – his brain is working on extracting the images from within, discovering artwork he didn’t know that he kept inside. He moves in all kind of directions, and hides away his finished work because he fears making copies.
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The fifth Laba! Street Festival showcased a great variety of Ugandan artists; visual and performing artists, every single one eager to display and offer their creations to the passing spectator. Startjournal presents three artists with different reasons to create art as a living.
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A talented and multidimensional artist in his own right, Michael Ouma has been there and done that and lived to play the tune. His insight into music is almost legendary and gives one the sense that he plays from a totally otherworldly place compared to his peers. His passion for music and his desire to see the day when Uganda’s music and its instruments are recognized globally fuel his daily pursuit to become better at what he does.
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