WILL HIP HOP BE UGANDA’S BIGGEST GENRE IN 2020?

At the genesis of Hip hop, the worldwide appeal wasn’t foreseeable, but now, almost 50 years later; it’s impossible to imagine a planet without hip hop and rap music. On the Ugandan scene, hip hop has been described as a “wanna be” genre, with radio and television presenters not [most of the time] playing hip hop music terming it as slow and boring music which doesn’t appeal to the Ugandan masses – but it actually does.

Over the past few years, Ugandan rappers have struggled to earn a living using their craft, but were given a deaf ear from all corners of the music industry, with brands not associating with the rappers, promoters not booking the rappers, radio stations not accepting in-country rap music and radio and television stations not giving in-country rappers interviews claiming that hip hop has no or few followers.

      Then boom came a generation of Ugandan rappers with music the media didn’t resist including GNL Zamba,Navio, Mun G, Late MULEKWA, Babaluku,Big Tril,The Mith,Lyrical G, KEKO , Don MC, Flex D’Paper, Atlas,Late LUMIX,Sylvester and Abramz, ST Nelly Sade,CODE,Airportaxi, Fefe BusiI,Gravity Omutujju e.t.c.

Over the few years, rap has been fused with other music genres like dancehall, Afro beat etc, and leading to the emergence of notable successful rappers like Fik Famaeica, Fefe Busi, Gravity Omutujju and others. [Editor’s note: This fusion gave the rappers a crossover appeal.]

      Now sliding a little bit into 2019, Uganda has had different hit songs from its very own rap stars. But one song stood out, and guess what? PARTE AFTER PARTE by Big Tril. Though the song wasn’t well received by [some] fellow Ugandan rappers saying it’s the end of Big Tril’s rap career, it turned out to be the introduction of Big Tril’s rap career to the entire African continent. Let’s break this song down.

Big Tril over the past few years has been among Uganda’s notable top rappers, his “Parte After Parte” song is a dancehall fused rap song whereby he raps on a dancehall beat, which made the song an instant hit song in Uganda and some parts of the world. The song has been endorsed by different continental music acts like Wizkid, Banky W, Olamide, Patoranking and others.

      With that said, what does the future hold for the Ugandan hip hop industry 2020?. We will witness hip hop hit songs, whether rap fusion or real hip hop music from Ugandan rappers, we will witness hip hop collaborations from different continents, we will witness hip hop concerts, we will witness the hip hop genre gaining some percentage of the music industry, we will witness few Ugandan artists running for collaboration from hip hop artists like Ykeee Benda did on his new song “BOMBOKLAT” on which he features Big Tril, Navio, Fefe Busi, Don MC, and Santana.

Even though hip hop music in Uganda hasn’t sky rocketed as expected by the in-country rappers, the future looks bright and 2020 seems to be the right time.

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Philant Tonny

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