Afrigo Band’s Don Canta is gone

The music fraternity joins the general public to mourn the passing on of one of the country’s best performing artistes.

KAMPALA

Death has again stretched its dreaded hand, taking with it Don Canta, a musician that colleagues, friends and fans will remember as jolly, talented and stylish. In February this year, it took Fred Maiso of Ekimuli Kya Rosa fame.

Don Canta died on Saturday at Mulago Hospital after losing the battle to pneumonia.
Afrigo Band fans who throng Club Obligatto, along Bombo Road, every Friday and Saturday will miss the 37-year-old electrifying performer who has been identified as Congolese much as he is Ugandan like his band leader, Moses Matovu. His versatility created the doubt because when he sang Franco Luambo Boureau’s Makambo Ezali Boureau, just like a native speaker of Lingala and French.

On stage, he would mime country legendaries like Jim Reeves and Kenny Rogers alive, and then take fans to a another musical journey to Mali to have a stirring musical taste of Salif Keïta, and still remind old timers of Sammy Kasule with one of his personal favourite, Asante. That is just how good Canta was.

Born in 1975, Canta cut his musical teeth at 17, in 1992 when he started performing with Tony Ssengo’s Badindas Band. He reached out to musical fans in his career that spans well over 20 years, at concerts, with other bands like Simba Ngoma, Crossroads Band, Waka Waka Band before finding home in Afrigo Band in 2000.

Recently, he has been playing with Code 9 and Uganda’s all-boy band, Barbed Wire Thong, endearing himself to the current generation of music lovers.

Tributes pour in
His passing has been received with grief and shock from the music fraternity and the general public. Joe Tabula, one of Canta’s close friends, says he became ill soon after their return from Sweden where Afrigo Band was performing at the jubilee celebrations for Ugandans in the diaspora.
“It was very cold there and Canta got exposed to the cold. When he returned, he performed at two shows and was admitted to Case Clinic before he was referred to Mulago from where he died,” Tabula said.

Robert Ssegawa was also in Sweden at the time and was a moderator at the celebrations. In Canta, he remembers a good friend. The two met in 1996. “I was with Tony Ssengo and the Badindas Band. Canta was the first musician to give me a run for my money. He was uniquely talented because he could sing in a number of languages and styles,” Ssegawa recalls.

Moses Matovu, Afrigo Band’s leader, recalls a lanky 25-year-old Livingstone Ibanda walking up to him in 2000 to request to become a band member. He had seen Canta perform in many bands and hence gave him chance. “He was an all-rounder. He could dance, sing and compose songs. We will remember him for Omwana W’mutoro and Sammy Kasule’s Asante.”

Over the years, Canta became a distinguishable face in the band, and when Charles Ssekyanzi passed on in 2009, he tried to fit in the legendary’s shoes, performing his songs and taking up his parts during the band’s gigs at Club Obligatto.

The news of his death is yet to sink into fans’ minds. Veteran journalist Joachim Buwembo only got to learn of his friend’s death yesterday morning. “Are you sure Canta is gone?” Buwembo asked. He recalls their 2008 meet when the fallen star shared with him about quitting smoking and alcohol after meeting a woman he was sure to settle down with.

Chris Ireland, leader of Code 9, one of the last bands Canta performed with, describes the fallen star as the most passionate musician he has met. “When he was on stage, he forgot about everything else. As musicians, sometimes you feel low but for Canta when he was on stage, it was about performing and entertaining the crowd,” Ireland says.

Tabula says Canta has two children, both living in Sweden. Don Canta was slated to be laid to rest yesterday in Buwongo Village, off the Iganga-Kaliiro highway.

rbatte@ug.nationmedia.com