Hip hop in UG

By Dennis Asiimwe 

 

I was watching a couple of old music videos on Sunday when up popped the old Navio/Klear Kut track, All I Wanna Know.

 

Something made me pay a little more attention than usual, because, if I remember correctly, this track was released just over 10 years ago. The question at the back of my mind was “What’s changed? Has hip-hop gotten better?”

 

The song featured songstress Juliana Kanyomozi, with a gorgeously delectable hook and hip-hop Hall of Famer Dawoo (if we ever had a hall of fame, that is) looking chipper and significantly lighter (today he looks rather like a successful mafia kingpin, which is a good thing too) and handling the production.

 

Klear Kut were looking remarkably skinny as well: Navio barely hanging on in the slight breeze, JB with his trade-mark thug attitude already blossoming,

 

Papito still trying to get folks used to the idea that he was rapping in French and Tom-the-Mith looking about half the size he does now (which also, is a good thing). In the background, in a breath-taking bikini amongst a flurry of similarly clad females was a teenage girl who had just jetted in from a gig on East African Radio and was about to take our dusty city by storm, our first visual of the presenter we came to know as Seanice.

 

It’s a damn good video, even now, considering software and light and special effects changes that have developed since back then; but more importantly, it’s a bloody good song.

 

 Keko’s ability to roll with the best in the hip hop game has given the genre a new twist

 

The Mith was in scintillating form, and even way back then, we knew Navio was going to be something:

“Worldwide recognition…?

Am on the brink of that!”

And today? Well take a look around, friends. Hip-hop has grown, exploded actually, in Kampala, Uganda, heck, in East Africa and the rest of the continent; it is easily the fastest growing musical genre of the last 8-10 years in Uganda.

 

It has a growing fan base, with the typical fan anywhere between 12 and 45 years old; it has the fastest growing female fan base of any genre between the ages of 18-35, with concert-going audiences increasingly made up of screaming (and if you are lucky largely attractive) fans.

 

It has bigger and better concerts, with more innovations (Navio actually performed with a live band called Soul Beat in a stage performance that I will ALWAYS remember).

 

It has created an alternate genre called luga-flow and a host of other sub-genres including runya-flow (seriously!) and the like.

 

It has a whole new line up of some kickin’ MCs, artistes like I-Am- Enygma, Lyrical Proof, Big Trill, Mun G, GNL, Lyrical G, Navio as a solo artiste, Tom-the Mith-Mayanja as a solo artiste as well, Atlas and a host of others; it’s also given us Keko, a female MC that can roll ‘em with the best and then some.

 

It’s got more and more people lining up to do some of the catchiest hooks you will hear anywhere, with Tracy Agaba shooting to superstardom online with her hook on 

The Hip-Hop- All-Stars marathon jam, Competition 

Is Dead, NTV’s Susan Naava on the haunting Smile of a Child and with Evon sounding otherworldly on the Enygma-Lyrical Proof-Mith collabo, Klarity Anthem, a hip-hop anthem that defines the industry as it is today.

 

It’s gotten to a whole new level in terms of lyricism, taking this art form back to what it really was in the beginning: a form of urban poetry. 

Try keeping up with the word-play from Klarity Anthem: Enygma “We are the mafia, the one Bukenya warned you about!” or one of my favorite one-liners ever, from Lyrical Proof, “Lyrically I haunt you” and you will have a smidgen of an idea of what I am mouthing off about. And everyone, and I mean everyone in the industry has raised their game a level. The fact that hiphop enjoys crossover success with other genres (Keko in one of my favorite songs last year, Kwe kunya kunya, with Vampino, Juliana, and Cindy is the perfect example) has woken up the corporate community in one hell of a hurry.

 

Indeed, hip-hop is enjoying the highest level of corporate sponsorship it ever has received, way more than it could have dreamed of, and with brands rushing to different artists like Navio, GNL and Keko to endorse their products, there can be little doubt of the recognized impact the genre is enjoying. Add to this it’s solid presence online, with fans having access to free downloads and celebrity status on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter and you have to ask the question, albeit a little gently: why the heck are the Ugandan FM radio stations ignoring Ugandan hip-hop?

 

The hip-hop community, naturally, is already up in arms, saying FM stations have a bias against them (those pesky station librarians again!). While I was inclined to agree with them, I decided to go for the slightly more rational approach and actually ask a few questions.

 

Not too surprisingly, Sanyu FM’S Fat Boy provided some of the clearest insights on this apparent trend:

“It’s more a case of FM stations preferring an easy listening sound, and while hip-hop has certainly improved, a lot of the old genres leaned towards something along the lines of what Wu Tang Klan would do, which really is not radio friendly, you know…about four minutes of rap with a hook somewhere near the end.” I pressed him further about songs like Klarity Anthem, which follow the rap and hook format that is loved by FM stations and he replied: “Well, that is quickly coming back into vogue here, and you are certainly going to be hearing songs like those on air soon.”

 

It would seem even the radio stations are waking up to this, and its way overdue, considering Klarity

Anthem was released about a year ago (and this radio friendly format certainly will fly, considering the radio/airplay success of Klear Kut’s All I Wanna Know). It would certainly be a welcome thing to hear some indigenous sleek word-play backed by a clever hook on your car radio while chugging through this clumsy city.

 

As a comparison, I heard Chameleon’s Valu Valu playing on air only a few hours after he reportedly released the track. Maybe he knows a guy, who knows a guy, who knows a guy…