Music Review: Mugalya's muti-ligual approach wins love

Nakupenda – Emma Mugalya

If there was one thing that 2025 proved, there is a changing of the guard on the music scene.

A few of the old names are hanging on but no one defeats Father Time. Leading the charge are lads like Joshua Baraka and Elijah Kitaka. It’s pretty phenomenal what these two lads pulled off last year, especially as the year was winding down.

I will be taking a look at some of the new kids on the block a lot, and one that comes to mind is a lad called Emma Mugalya. He has the relentless energy of youth, along with the daring – he is not yet genre bound, which is somewhat refreshing.

His latest single is Nakupenda, which dropped at the end of 2025. The song is intriguingly multilingual, tapping into Luganda, English and Swahili. It is, somewhat obviously, a love song, and Mugalya’s earnestness as expresses this elusive emotion is captured in the song’s intense lyrics.
 

 
The song’s hook works, mostly because he follows the rule book: make your hooks memorable, simple. I think what struck me most about Nakupenda is how the song is arranged. Mugalya skips past the usual syrupy nonsense that defines the love song genre and his arrangement gives it an adult contemporary feel that would make the song sound comfy in an acoustic setting.

There is no disguising the endgame here though – this is still a love song, and love songs work like mad in this town. The multilingual approach is also practical and ropes in an extra pair of ears or two. I actually listened a little farther to see how he would pull off the multilingual attempt. He makes it work.

At this point I feel like Mugalya still sounds just a little tentative, and should probably be a little bolder. The ability is there – he just needs to push on, and find the right vehicle to showcase that ability.

A good time to be dropping a love song though, no doubts on that one –a certain Valentine Day is just around the corner.