Monday, 18 Mar 2024
Category: Music

Jackie Akello

The money of Music in Uganda

There is a popular prevailing assumption that when you make a hit song, you break through and achieve lots of success. The reality is very sobering. Every music artist must have a side hustle or alternative streams of income other than recording and performing music. Acaye Elizabeth Pamela dives into the Ugandan music industry and speaks to some key players to investigate where the money is in music.

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Uganda Recordings

Ugandan Recordings is a Scandal Studios project to uncover and document music from northern Uganda. The search has found artists with a variety of instruments such as adungu, lukeme, nang’a, bila and orak. All recorded songs are accompanied by video clips, so one can see how each artist creates their work.

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Rift Valley Festival 2013

A platform like the Rift Valley Festival can be used to strategically develop ones career, but it is dependent on the vision of the musician. There is no point in going there to just collect contacts. One must follow up with emails or phone calls in order to develop relationships or explore future collaborations.

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A Mind of Its Own

“When I have been surrounded by gracious courteous musicians, the stage has always been a space of incredible intimacy. Those times when I have played in the orchestra have once or twice felt as though I was being swept up by a thunderstorm. You watch the notes lift off the page as you play them; suddenly the world disappears around you.” An essay on music, love and jazz by Serubiri Moses.

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Singing for the Heart

“Right now, with the growth of the creative industry globally and the culture of “bling” as perpetrated by mainstream artists, I think a lot of people think it’s a way to make fast money. It looks glamorous, being on stage, mingling with stars, having lots of money—which is a myth, there is always a price to be paid when signed to a major label—nice clothes, fast cars and beautiful men and women around you, but in fact it is a profession that takes a lot of commitment, practice and hard work.” An essay on singing by Ife Piankhi.

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Xenson talking at Wazo, Kampala 2013.

Wazo 10: Xenson tells his story

On April 2nd 2013, the guest speaker for Wazo 10 was conceptual and visual artist, musician, filmmaker and poet, Ssenkaaba Samson, who goes by the name Xenson. In his introduction the moderator, David Kaiza, described Xenson as someone whose varied work in fashion, music, poetry and the visual arts has exponentially expanded what we call art and the art space in Uganda.

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The Agali Awamu Troupe at Bayimba Regional Festival in Jinja 2013. Photo by Gilbert Bwette Daniel.

Bayimba Jinja: Crowd-pullers wanted

There was that general feeling that the Bayimba Festival in Jinja had not been advertised enough, hence the slow attendance of people. Festivals are supposed to give you that sense of excitement and belonging. It’s hard to get that with a scanty number of people. That aside, the sound of music of its own is bound to bring you numbers since the event was in a public space and considering that shs 1000 is not a lot to pay. On this occasion, there was something missing in the music acts that performed. This festival needed at least one or two big names that are certain crowd-pullers to uplift the mood of the festival.

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Illustration by Jackson. © All rights reserved 2013.

“His Skin Lost Its Soup” | A Survey of Memory Loss

Kadongo Kamu is a musical subculture within Uganda which roots began in the 1950s with the guitarists Christopher Sebadduka and Elly Wamala. This article deals with how this culture has been subverted from mainstream culture through active technological and infrastructural modernization in Uganda from the 1960s till present.

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Producing Culture on Twitter: Is it Ugandan?

From the exposure many Ugandan musicians such as Navio, The Mith, Keko, Lillian Mbabazi and Maurice Kirya are receiving on Twitter, it would not be inappropriate to say that popular Ugandan music is experiencing a boom in Africa. Unfortunately, this has exposed their largely Western aspirations, creating the daunting questions such as: Who is the audience on Twitter? Which culture does one produce for? And, is it possible to produce a cultural following on Twitter?

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Saint Nelly Sade. Photo by courtesy of the artist.

St. Nelly-sade: Luga-flo lyricist, emcee, poet and thinker

“When I listen to the latest album of St. Nelly-sade, I can’t stop but muse that, by and by, future hip-hop critiques, collectors, practitioners, etc will reflect upon his music as a one of a kind archetype, and use it to school and inspire the coming hip-hop generations in Uganda.” Lutakome ‘Felix’ Fidelis has met the Ugandan underground rapper.

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Celebrating 50 years of Independence at International Women's Day Uganda 2013. Photo by Petra Behnsen.

The International Women’s day Festival

On March 8th, one couldn’t help but wonder how art would be used to celebrate such an interesting phenomenon of the human race. Would it call for a sculpture of the woman in all her glory, a painting of her most-prized assets? Or how she embraces art in her day-to-day life to make it comfortable for herself and her loved ones? Certainly for the international celebrations of the Women’s day at the Sheraton, the answer lay in this last one. The theme of the festival was how independent is the Ugandan Woman? A retrospect of the past 50 years, present and future perspectives.

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