Gold found in a voice

Melodius. On a typical Sunday, Freda Nassuuna, a chorister at Church of the Resurrection; Bugolobi Church of Uganda (BCOU) leads Praise and Worship. Lydia Ainomugisha. finds out who this angelic voice is.

From as far as the church’s gate, you will hear her smooth alluring soprano. When leading the choir at Bugolobi Church of Uganda, she starts with praise and transitions to worship songs.
This is just an ounce of what Freda Nassuuna can do on a bigger stage, as an upcoming gospel artiste. She writes and sings music to inspire families and encourage women.

Going solo
With an album of eight songs already out, she started her professional solo career in 2013 after a disappointment from a friend with whom she was supposed to sing at a wedding.
“Someone from church contracted me to sing Runyankole songs at his wedding. I got a friend to back me up, we rehearsed but she never showed up on the D-day. Even the band came late so I was embarrassed,” she recalls.
From then, she says she quit taking up gigs where she has to coordinate people randomly and made up her mind to go solo. From biblical devotions, reading books and people’s experiences, she started writing her music.
With her first album; Obufumbo released in 2014, she sings to highlight different societal menaces. “I for example wrote omubi atavaawo after a friend’s experience whose husband abandoned her because she gained a lot of weight after childbirth and omukazi omwegendereza to encourage women to be hard working like the one talked about in proverbs 31,” she says.
But her focus is women, “I want to encourage women to package their bodies well because they are pieces of Christ read by people daily. As we walk out of our houses, we should always be mindful of what we reflect to society.”
The album contains songs such as Kankwanjule, He never slumbers, Niiwe, Obufumbo, Omubi Atavaawo, Wanika Emikono and Omukazi Omwegendereza were appreciated by many Christians. She already has the songs written but there’s still no money to record and produce the music.

Back then...
Nassuuna started singing while at Kanyange Primary School in Kagoma; Kawempe a suburb of Kampala. Orphaned at a young age, she was staying with her aunt then.
“I was the only pupil without shoes in my class but became the school’s choir leader and won a trophy of merit as the best soloist,” she laughs as she recounts.
Bubbly as she narrates her childhood memories, she says her cousins nicknamed her Madonna because of her strong vocals. For her, singing was part of her everyday activity.
“I used to sing as I did house chores.”
Her genre of songs improved when she joined secondary school at St. Thomas Aquinas in Jinja Karoli. Besides singing in the school choir, she got role models such as Cece Winans, Amy grant and Fiona Mukasa. This phase was, however short-lived as she dropped out of school in Senior Three because of financial constraints. She then relocated to Mutungo, a Kampala suburb, to stay with her sister.
While there, she often went to Bugolobi flats to do odd jobs. “At the flats, I used to stand before a mirror after my work and imitate Fiona Mukasa in songs like Suula Eri and You are My God. I hoped to sing like her one day.”

Getting saved
Nassuuna later got saved after being preached to about the father of the fatherless by some missionaries from BCOU in 1996. She started attending the church’s Luganda service and when she got familiar with the church’s system, she together with some two friends started singing in the service.
“We used to listen to a song on radio, write down the words, practice and then present before church on Sundays,” she says.
Later some good Samaritans such as Sam Mugume’s family and Vision International teamed up with the church and paid her school fees until she completed her diploma in secretarial studies in 2005 she emerged the best. The mother of two got married to Fred Okura in November 2008.

Performances
She now performs at weddings, introductions and women conferences. She also performed at BCOU, Christ Community Church Mutungo, Masaka Pentecostal church among others. Besides performing as a solo artiste, she at times performs with Christ Aloe Band.

Challenges
Now using her salary from Church of Resurrection; Bugolobi church of Uganda where she works as an administration assistant, Nasuuna says funding has been her biggest challenge. “By now my second album would be out but I’m short of finances,” she says. Adding, promotion of her music requires steady finances too which she does not have as required by media houses.