I'm done! No more listening to Ugandan radio

By Kalungi Kabuye

I like sleeping with some music playing. Okay, I like doing anything and everything with some music playing. 

Whether it is trying to edit some badly written story; trying to make a very stubborn column come alive; reading that very exciting book; or even watching TV, I like for there to be some music playing.

I have quite a big collection of music, mostly CDs. But I have plenty in mp3 format too, either on CDs or on an external drive. 

I remember in the 90s the most common method of collecting music was on cassette tapes; and anybody who was there then knows how tiresome it could be getting up to change cassettes every 30 or 45 minutes.

So commercial FM stations seemed like a God send when they came onto the scene early to mid-90s. They mostly played music with the occasional presenter coming in. We did not need to change cassettes anymore, but just tune into a station as I worked or read a book.

But after almost two decades of listening to Ugandan FM radio, I have come to the difficult decision that enough is enough – I will no longer listen to any Ugandan radio station.

The immediate cause of this came late last year; I was on leave and chilling at home, of course reading a book. As usual the radio was playing in the background. 

But even with my concentration focused on the pages in front of me, it filtered through that for quite a while the radio I was listening to was playing one Nigeria song after another. And they all sound so annoyingly alike. 

And the only songs by Ugandans played were copies of those irritating Nigerian songs. That is when I said, no more.

It got even worse when I tuned into Dance Force on a Saturday evening, and my brother Alex Ndawula was also playing Nigerian songs.

But it had started much earlier. I am admittedly old school, so of course I used to listen to Radio One play their oldies. I used to sleep with it playing, till a few years ago, in the middle of the night I was woken up by a very irritating kwasa kwasa song. 

When you’re feeling all mellow, kwasa kwasa is the last thing you want to hear.

Of course I complained and asked why, because it really made no sense to be playing soulful ballads and then throw in Mr Kanda Bongoman at his annoying best. 

I was told politely that there were many stations in Kampala, and I could listen to any of the others if I chose. So of course I touched my dial and stopped listening to Radio One.

I am also a jazz lover, so when I learnt that a station called Jazz FM, that played only jazz was on air, I started going to sleep with that one playing. The signal was not very good, but it did play jazz. 

But early in the mornings the very annoyed voice of Pastor Sempa (he owned it) ranting about something or another, would wake you like an alarm clock. So, no more Jazz FM then.

Most radio stations around Kampala target demographics other than mine, but occasionally have some special themed hour or so when they play my type of music. So I will tune into Radio One between 9 and 10pm on Sunday nights for the jazz hour; and Sanyu’s Wind Down Zone on Sunday afternoons is bearable.

But I don’t really need radio anymore; these days I just connect my external disk to the home theatre and it can play the whole day and weekend, if necessary. Who needs radio playing Nigerian songs?