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Kampalalog


DevO

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Hey everybody, I've been here for over 2 months now and have been meaning to send a musical update of sorts! Kampala is a pretty lively city, but its taken a while to find the live tunes, what follows is my results thus far.

Initially it seemed to me that Kampala skipped 1950-2000 entirely and went straight to the hip hop of the 2000s in terms of music in bars and clubs, save for the odd reggae ditty here and there. I couldn't find any rock and roll for the life of me. I commented to friends that perhaps that is my true calling here in Uganda: to give the gift of rock and roll. I found this one place that has "rock night"; unfortunately it was of the Creed/Nickelback variety.

Uganda seems to lack the musical richness of West Africa. That said, there is "jam night" every Monday night in this small room upstairs in the National Theatre, its labelled as a reggae jam and its where its at. Sandwiched between bad covers of Kissed By A Rose you get the odd catchy roots reggae tune. The last Monday of the month they move the party outdoors, and the party grows. Unfortunately the last time I went someone horked my phone, but good times besides that.

There was also the Kampala International Jazz Festival, which was 2 nights in a row at Speke Resort in Munyonyo.. Beautiful location right on Lake Victoria, big grass field, great stage set up, etc. Here I saw Miriam Makeba, Oliver Mtukudzi, Third World Love, Isaiah Katumwa, Joel Sebonju, Baxmba Waves, Godfrey Lubuulwa and Soul Beat Africa. Great night dancing under the stars with perfect weather. ( story here)

And more recently, I took matters into my own hands and put on a show myself. As Coordinator of GuluWalk in Kampala, I organized a show dubbed the GuluWalk-Luo Festival, at a local club in town. We had a large crew of musicians down from the north of Uganda and it was a great celebration of northern Ugandan culture and music. Huge turnout and the music went til 6am! What I found coolest about this event was, when these type of performances pass through Canada they are usually reserved for the sterile atmospheres and audiences that corporate-sponsored-and-paid venues breed.. City festivals or Harbourfront Centre type places. This event was at a downtown club, full of students getting their groove on, and it felt a bit more real than the showcase events we get at home. PICTURES HERE! (in there there are also pics from the GuluWalk Charity Golf Tournament that I organized, which took place the next day).

And finally: AL's BAR. This bar is notorious and infamous as being the sleaziest in town, a place that really gets going at 5am when it fills up with prostitutes and dirty old expat men. I'd been avoiding it, but its RIGHT across from my office, and then I heard that its one of the only places in town with a foosball table. Now I am a big foosball enthusiast and so finally ended up at Al's. I went at a decent hour of 8pm though, just a few prostitutes hanging out and no old white men except Al, the owner. This place is AMAZING!! Great set up, one of teh best foosball tables I've ever played on, blaring Beatles, Zeppelin and P-Funk on the stereo, and the walls are decked with concert posters from The Dead, The Stones, Hendrix, all your favourites. The icing on the cake was a concert poster from The Band, actually SIGNED by Danko himself! I spoke to Al about it and it is legit.

So I finally found some rock and roll, shown the light in the strangest of places. :)

That's it for now!

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