Kenneth Mugabi
The first time I interviewed Kenneth Mugabi was out of sheer luck. I was initially looking for film director Ken Ssebaggala. At the time, he was finishing his film, Reformed.
The film follows a high school bully whose life turns around when he is forced to join a poetry club.
No, Kenneth Mugabi was not an actor in the film. He, however, did the soundtrack for the film. To date, the music he sang in that film is still untitled and probably will never be released.
Those were the years when music in film was still a luxury, since most filmmakers could not afford paying for music rights of established songs; they would opt for a little-known artiste, pay them to sing all the songs that ended up in the film or pay them to sing one song that would be used in all situations.
For Reformed, Mugabi sang one song that kept showing up in different scenes of the film and trust me it was not a fun experience as it made the film seem like a long music video on loop.
The first time I met him, he was there to record the music for that film and he introduced himself as Mugabi, a singer and songwriter. He later said a thing or two about working with Qwela Band at the time.
During the film premiere, he performed Kibunomu and Nubuka, the latter would become the lead single of his debut album. Nubuka on the other hand remains that Kenneth Mugabi song that was posted on SoundCloud but never gets performed. Nubuka was one of the first songs he released after being eliminated from Rated Next, a televised talent search on Urban TV.
After that, he has since released three albums; Kibunomu, Ugandan and People of the Land. Word is that he has an unreleased album he produced with producer Kaz Kasozi but he is yet to release it.
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