Obituaries are for the living
Moses Matovu’s death has left a deep void in Uganda’s music industry, but for those who knew him personally, the greatest pain is losing the stories and memories that will now never be told, writes Kalungi Kabuye
Matovu in a moment of music, now preserved in the memories of those left to tell his story. (File)
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WHAT’S UP!
I really didn’t know what to do when the news came that Moses Matovu had died. There was disbelief, and I still don’t quite believe it up to now. A week later, I still wake up in the morning thinking and hoping it was all just a bad dream.
The week he died, we were finally going to start work on his autobiography. The idea came up about four years ago, and we all agreed Moses’ story had to be told. He was not only a titan in Uganda’s music industry, but he had been for more than five decades.
Being that titan meant he had rubbed shoulders with all the big and mighty in Uganda who had come and gone as the tides of our country ebbed and flowed. And he had plenty of stories to tell.
Matovu’s memory
The last time we met, a week before he died, he told stories of how Idi Amin would barge into their rehearsals unannounced. I asked him what it felt like to be in Amin’s presence, knowing all the things he had done, including the murder of their bandmate Jesse Gitta Kasirivu.
For the first time in the more than 20 years since I began talking to and interviewing Moses, he kept quiet after a question. He looked away, and I could see the memories flooding back on his face. He didn’t answer the question, but he told me how Amin would come with his now-wife, Sarah, to their performances. And how Sarah would not look at them, knowing she had been the unfortunate cause of their friend’s disappearance. After that story, he again looked away.
After a while, he looked back at me and said: “Mwami Kabuye, ekitabo tukiwaandike.” (He always called me Mwami Kabuye).
So, we agreed that on Monday last week, we would start with the first recorded session. But early Monday morning, he called and said he had to go for a burial and asked if we could reschedule for Friday, after prayers.
Of course, I said Friday was alright with me. But on Thursday morning, the news came that he had been killed. In a fight.
I couldn’t believe it, and I still don’t. How could that happen? To Moses, of all people? In a fight? No, it couldn’t be.
And why now, when we had finally agreed to start work on his book? He had even joked about it, in his languid way, that time was not on his side.
“Omanyi emyaka gigenda,” he said.
On that Thursday morning, I was asked if I could write an obituary. But I declined. What was I going to write? I’ve written Moses’ story quite a few times over the years, as the band celebrated one anniversary after another.
And last year, I was the editor of the Afrigo @50 coffee table book, Omuziiki Guwooma, which told the band’s story mostly in pictures.
What more was I going to write? What I felt then was pain, a lot of pain. Pain at what had happened to Moses, who least deserved an ending like that.
The funny thing, I have written plenty of obituaries before. There was a time I was the designated writer of obituaries at the New Vision. When I asked my then boss Barbara Kaija why me, she said it was because I took time to try and understand the people I was writing about and what their lives could have meant.
But it was depressing work. How do you put a person’s entire life into a few paragraphs? Is that what a life lived boils down to, just a few paragraphs on a newspaper page? It always left me sad, so eventually I stopped writing obituaries.
So, there was no way I was going to write one for Moses. If writing about people I had not known made me sad, what about the person who I think was one of the greatest Ugandans who ever lived? But who nevertheless called me ‘Mwami Kabuye’?
But I did read what others wrote. Moses had touched many people, and it was fitting that they wanted to pay tribute to a master.
But as I read, it became clear that most of them were really not about Moses, but about themselves, the writers. It almost became a competition over who knew Moses more, and who had interacted with him in more spectacular circumstances. Thousands posted pictures of themselves posing with Moses, as if saying: Yeah, I knew him and he knew me. Celebrity chasing had ‘crashed’ Moses’ death, turning it into a spectacle.
But in a way, I don’t blame them. The departed will not read the obituaries or listen to the glowing tributes; they are for us and about us, the living. Thus, the spectacle of ‘I knew him better’, ‘I have a better photograph with him’.
In many societies, but especially in Africa, grieving is a communal thing. We all get together to support the bereaved so they do not bear the grief and burden alone.
Which is a good thing. Unfortunately, it has now become akin to a show. But to me, grief is a private thing. So, I apologise for not showing up at Kibuli, or at the National Theatre, or in Kyanja. But I did reach out and will continue to do so. But the pain, it is still there.
You can follow Kalungi Kabuye on X: @KalungiKabuye