Everyone who attended the 12th edition of the Blankets and Wine event on Sunday, will agree that Madoxx Ssematimba was the better performer of the evening, despite a few sound glitches; In fact he was better than Uhuru, a South African four man group who were the main act of the night.
Madoxx adorned in a red t-shirt, black jeans and black boots took to the stage at 6:30pm. When he started his performance, the crowd abandoned their seats – rather wrappers, mats and blankets – they had earlier found comfort in – and started to sing along on every track the reggae artiste belted out. He sang ‘Dembe’, ‘Okaabila Ki’, ‘Omuyimbi’ and midway his time on stage, Maddox thanked the organisers for inviting him to be part of such an event.
“It’s not easy to bring me to such a corporate event. Thank you the organisers of Blankets and Wine. Who knows what I would be doing right now in the ghetto.”
He said before continuing with other tracks like ‘Omukwano Gwaffe’, ‘Easy’, ‘Nakatudde’ and ‘Irene’. But when the guitars struck for ‘Namagembe’, a signature track that bequeathed Madoxx as one of the greatest reggae artistes to ever grace the Ugandan music industry, the audience cheered on.
One couple was overheard saying, “Wish they can keep bringing him back instead of lining up artistes who fail to impress.”
When he was done, the emcees of the night, Dedan and Shakib announced that Uhuru were coming on next.
It took the producers of ‘Khona’ track about 10 minutes to get on stage. Their lineup of songs was on point because they made sure they performed tracks Ugandans are familiar with like “Khona, Oskido, Ungowami, Saka Nane and Y-tjukutja, pulling off catchy dance strokes to cheers from the crowd. Their performance lasted for less than 45minutes.
Earlier on, Sitenda, an electro Afro neo-soul artiste kept revelers busy the entire afternoon. And when Sandra Suubi came on stage, the half full venue couldn’t resist her charming vocals especially on songs like ‘Neyanziza’, ‘Tuli Njiibwa’, and ‘Misubawa’ by Maurice Kirya.
The outgoing Airtel Trace Music Star Ugandan winner then called upon Xabu, a duo of her childhood friends Tonya Ahenda and Brenda Nantongo, their performance was taken to another level when they did justice to the Michael Jackson’s ‘Man in the mirror’ among other songs.
Sandra also shared the stage with Solome Basuuta and MoRoots, with whom she performed with last year during the Qwela Junction Divas event. Despite the entry fee being hiked from Shs70,000 to Shs100,000, the 12th edition of the Blankets and Wines was well attended especially for the fact that it was Easter Sunday.
