The Economist USA 03.21.2020

70 TheEconomistMarch 21st 2020

1

N

ight is fallingwhen Full Figure gets

back to her office in a poor quarter of

Kampala, the Ugandan capital. The singer,

wearing a baseball cap and psychedelic

“My Little Pony” t-shirt, is returning from

State House, the country’s seat of power. As

an unofficial adviser on “ghetto issues”, she

explains, she uses her “big voice” to con-

nect the president, Yoweri Museveni, to the

people. Mostly that seems to mean organis-

ing state handouts for local youngsters,

such as the welders raising sparks on the

streets below.

Ugandan musicians have played poli-

tics since the days when court troupes ser-

enaded kings. Now the young, fast-grow-

ing cities are dancing to a new beat. A pop

star-turned-mpcalled Bobi Wine is proba-

bly the opposition’s most popular candi-

date in next year’s presidential election

(like other artistes in this story, he is best

known by his stage name). Stars who sup-

port him are angling for parliamentary

seats; others act as praise singers for Mr

Museveni, whose strongman rule has so far

lasted 34 years. The race for the ghetto’s

votes runs through the recording studio.

The “big three” in Uganda’s home-

grown music industry are Mr Wine (pic-

tured) and his two rivals, Jose Chameleone

and Bebe Cool. When they first appeared on

the scene in the early 2000s the airwaves

were filled by Congolese bands, local bal-

ladeers and Western pop. The trio brought a

“fresh sound”, says Douglas Lwanga, a tele-

vision presenter, mixing Jamaican influ-

ences with a home-grown vibe. They bat-

tled in lyrics and brawled in nightclubs. “It

was about proving to each other who was

bigger and better,” recalls Mr Chameleone,

swigging whisky backstage in Kampala.

Mr Wine once sang that “there’s more

politics in the music industry than in the

parliament”. Not that, for him and his

peers, conventional politics was ever far

away. Mr Cool is a former cabinet minis-

ter’s son. He performed at rallies of the Na-

tional Resistance Movement (nrm), the

ruling party; politics, he says, was “my

fate”. One of Mr Wine’s brothers, himself a

musician and producer, twice ran for par-

liament. Another was a council chairman

in the slum where he was brought up.

His own political awakening came in

2007, when Kampala hosted a meeting of

Commonwealth leaders. In preparation,

the authorities demolished makeshift

dwellings and shut down roadside stalls,

including some owned by Mr Wine. “On the

day the queen comes the poor man is dis-

placed,” he sang. Soon he was styling him-

self as president of the “Ghetto Republic of

Uganja”, with a cabinet of dreadlocked

ministers. Mr Cool sang for “the uptown

boys”, says Mr Wine, but his own songs

were “a representation of a ragtag society”.

Beatbox and ballot box

This was a society that Mr Museveni knew

little about. The son of a cattle-herder, he

came to power through a rural insurgency;

his personal taste was for hymns, army

tunes and the Nashville crooner Jim

Reeves. But he had an ear for the demotic.

He once got down with the bazukulu

(grandchildren) by rapping a folk song. At

the elections in 2016, Mr Museveni backed

a ragga singer as the nrm’s candidate for

mayor of Kampala; he enlisted musi-

cians—including Mr Chameleone and Mr

Cool—to record a sycophantic anthem for

his own campaign.

Music and politics

Ghetto blasters

KAMPALA

Uganda’s pop stars are enlivening political campaigns—and launching them

Books & arts

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