Uganda celebrates world music day online

Last Sunday was World Music Day and as has always been the norm, The Fete De La Musique concert, organized by the French Embassy in Uganda and Talent Africa Group (TAG), was staged to celebrate world music.

This year, due to the COVID-19 social distancing guidelines, the show was held online, with prerecorded performances of various francophone musicians.

The concert started off on a low note, with unfamiliar names of artistes. The likes of Sara Vauclair, Cojack and Dodava Chelahn, who opened the show were new to the ears and eyes of many Ugandans, especially those who are not ardent followers of Francophone music.

Vauclair, a French musician, however, shocked a number of fans watching online when she dropped a Luganda song dubbed Bulungi produced by Daddy Andre.

World music fans will know, for a fact, that it is a genre with tracks running mostly on a variety of traditional music instruments, each song always carrying a story behind it. This year's World Music day performers gave exactly this kind of feel.

And talking about stories (African stories), Joel Ssebunjo, a Ugandan celebrated world musician, gave his fans a story about a United Africa. Following the dream of Pan Africanist Kwame Nkrumah, Ssebunjo told a story of how Africa would be if only nations were united. The lyrics, backed by a guitar, were indeed, a depiction of Africa's woes
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Away from the purely Francophone musicians who opened up, Herbert Ssensamba came in with Samantha, a love ballad that engaged many online. More from him, Ssensamba performed Bagwesambye, another Luganda love song, but this time raising the tempo a bit higher, evoking dance moods. Ssensamba also performed Muli.

From the northern region, Susan Kerunen, one of Uganda's best music exports to the world, had her own time to show off her world music touch, too.

Her French is concentrated, and she showed that off in her preamble, introducing her band members Robert Kibalama on the drums, Lawrence Matovu on the bass guitar and Aloysius Migadde on the guitar.

She kicked off with a folk song called Ginya, from her home village. The live band was perfectly matching with her rather fast tempo, and the result was what all Kerunen fans were waiting for. Her entire performance was energetic enough to get many dancing till the end.

"I have been part of the Fete De La Musique concert since 2006 when I had just emerged as a fusion artiste, and I want to thank the French Embassy for always giving me this platform," Kerunen said of her performance.

The crowd's favourite, and most familiar act on the show, Iryn Namubiru, closed the show with a bang. Backed by a talented band, Namubiru took fans back in time with some of her love songs. With her fluency in the French language, Namubiru performed a French song as her closing performance, shocking many with how good she was even in French.