Nince Henry
Here is a very simple song, one without many outstanding features. And yet it has enjoyed the kind of popularity that many songs with a more complex mode of production or thought-process behind them can only dream of. Mpola Mpola (which in Luganda, can be understood to mean taking things slowly, or easy), is the proof that “easy does it”.
This is Ugandan pop, an easy going though groovy song that excites the lower music market of this town, but has enough influence to charm even the more hip music lovers. It’s a love song, about a man who managed to woo a woman (a tough woman who happens to be a Mukiga…Bakiga are largely believed to be tough people) by “handling her properly.”
This song could easily be the male-grooming guide that many women world over wish the men who try to woo them read. It is however, probably the one guide which suggests that acting gentlemanly will land you the woman of your dreams, in a world where more often than not, nice guys finish last and the most beautiful women out there end up with the most wayward rogues. It’s testament to how true love should be. The reality, however, is another matter altogether.