Why I sing about love

Solome Basuuta Ndikutaaga is an artiste who loves to sing about love. Photo by Abubaker Lubowa

What you need to know:

LOVE ballads. On May 1, Solome Basuuta Ndikatuuga will launch her first album, My Love Story. She tells Brian Mutebi why love characterises her music

On May 28, 1983, Professor Edward and Lydia Mugambi had a daughter. Her father named her Ndikatuuga. Ndikatuuga means a beautiful necklace. Her mother named her Basuuta, a hymn of praise. Ndikatuuga was their lovely little ligt-skinned girl, who became the last born of five children.
Her father is a retired professor of Mathematics at Makerere University and his wife a lecturer at Nkumba University. Academics aside, something runs through this family, music. It is what Ndikatuuga would follow later in life. It took something unexpected to spark off her music career.
It was not that both her parents sing with the Kampala Singers, a group that sings classical music where her father also serves on the group’s board of directors. It was neither singing in the school choir at Makerere College School where she attended high school nor singing in Makerere University’s St Francis Chapel choir. It was life experiences as a young woman.

A journey of self discovery
“I had issues to do with love. Relationships were not working out for me,” she recounts. You would therefore expect her to say so with a frown face. She does not. Instead she smiles and laughs about the matter. I realise that is who she is; a cheerful young woman.
“I was going through experiences where I thought love was a feeling that you touch and feel and that is it. I always searched for love. But after searching (in vain), I decided to take myself on a journey, a lonely time of reflection.”
“I discovered who I was; one loved by God that I did not have to do anything to be lovable; God loved me. I found God’s love.”
At the end of that journey, Ndikatuuga composed a song, her first song, Dance.
“I was in a dance. The mental picture I had was of a lady and man dancing on the floor.” And what did that mean? “In life we are in a dance and more importantly it is men who must lead the dance and when we allow men to lead, things start getting on (smoothly).”

Singing God’s love
That was late 2013. Her music career had started. In early 2014, she had another song, Nz’ani (who am I). “Nz’ani is about the thoughts of God unto me; that he loves me and holds me in his loving mighty hands,” she says. Ndikatuuga has since composed and written nine songs. One thing is common in all her songs, love.
“The core of what I am is love, from the songs I sing to the movies I watch, it is also about love,” she says laughing heartily. On May 1,next Friday, Ndikatuuga will be launching her album, My Love Story at Golf Course Hotel, in Kampala, in celebration of her love for God and life.

Life outside music
A graduate of Computer Science from Makerere University, Ndikatuuga is the head of the Website Unit at Bank of Uganda.
Emmanuel Ineget, her workmate, says Ndikatuuga is friendly, passionate about music and everything she sets herself to do.
“She is one person you meet and want to meet again,” remarked Ineget. Maybe that is not surprising for the young woman whose hobbies are baking while at home, travelling and going outing with friends and laugh about “serious and non-serious stuff”. Indeed during the interview there was nothing to suggest it was first meeting. She was warm and gave explicit answers.
Ndikatuuga is still single. She smiles and laughs when asked who would be the ideal love of her life.
“He must have God at heart and his character should be of one who treats the nobodies – people everyone may ignore – as somebodies. I do not mind a man from downtown Kampala with a small lock-up but the thing is do you have a plan to grow or you will forever be locked up there. He must be a man of potential, he with a vision.” For now Ndikatuuga will concentrate on her job at Bank of Uganda and music. “I want to impact the world through music,” she says.

On love
“You do not have to tell it but show it. Love is important. People who give and receive love are more creative, hopeful and energetic. And those who have hatred, the serial killers, if you got statistics and analysed, you will find at the core of their lives, love is missing.”

HER THOUGHTS

Parents being academicians
“It is great because mum and dad teach you at home. But it is like a standard they have set for you. I am not aiming at becoming a professor myself though, maybe the children I will give birth to.”

Money
“Do not base your identity on money. Money is simply paper. How much value you attach to money will be the value it will have. Money should be a channel to help others.”

Education and career
1995 – Kitante Primary School
2000 – Gayaza High School
2002 – Makerere College School
2003 – Diploma in Computer Science
2007 – Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Makerere University
2009 to date – A number of positions at Bank of Uganda, currently head of Website Unit