Love brewed in music studio

For a while, Nshaba had his eyes on Omukiga but it took him some time to get an opportunity to come up-close with her. Then one day, she visited AO Records in Kampala where he worked. He did not wait to let his feelings known to her.
He confessed his love for her. She was taken aback. “But you have just seen me,” she told him. Part of her was pretending. She had heard from her friends that there was a man who admired her and always talked about her in light of winning her heart.
“I had just walked out of a bad relationship and was not keen on dating someone. At the time Nshaba had just returned from South Africa and he was insistent, so I decided that I would ‘deetoth’ him but as time went by and he never gave up. With my sister and friends, he took us to all the cool places in town. Unlike my ex-boyfriends, he was gentle. He took me to dinner-dates,” she recalls.

As she played with his heart, Omukiga realised that Nshaba was serious. “I started introducing her to my family members and taking her out for dinner to tell her about myself,” he adds.
Within two weeks, he had opened up to her and told her all about himself; things he liked and disliked and most of all, that he was ready to start a committed relationship with her. She started easing up.
“He was unlike so many men I had dated. My ex-boyfriends were horrible people. He was a gentleman. I was tired of fighting. Within our fourth month of dating, I realised I was pregnant. How was I going to face my father? Then he told me he was ready to officially visit my parents and family,” she recalls.

Consulting family
He called her father who then asked her if Nshaba was serious. She was sure he was. He visited. Unfortunately, she had a still birth. Even then, he was there. Today they are engaged.
For a while, Nshaba had been listening to his fiancé sing whenever she was cooking or doing other chores. “I told her that she had an unexplored talent. She couldn’t believe she could sing,” he recalls. He pushed her to sing beyond humming in the bathroom and kitchen.

Nshaba, a lead drummer with Afrigo, offered to manage her. From a fiancé, he became her manager. “It was a cool step. Sometimes when a woman is managed by a man, they end up dating or sexually attracted to one another. Nshaba was the perfect person because we were already relating personally. He had been in the music industry longer. I pay him a professional fee for his management services and we know how to draw the line though it becomes difficult at times. He is a strict person,” Omukiga explains.

Like any other couple, Nshaba says they face challenges but they keep communication channels open to talk and iron out differences. “I recall a time when I was pregnant, we had so many disagreements. I called my big sister in the UK and told her about it. She told me that if it was not pregnancy working me up then we needed to say sorry whenever we wronged each other. The three words, ‘I am sorry’ are simple but have worked wonders in our relationship,” the Kabale-based artiste observes.
“You have to be friends. That is the foundation of my relationship with Nshaba. We treat our friends differently from our siblings. There are things I can tell a friend and cannot tell a sister.

Many people are married to people because they are in love with them but not friends. When you have a friend in a lover you can confide in them, and talk to them openly,” Omukiga adds.
She advises that one should get into a relationship with someone who will not try hard to change them but one who can adjust so that they can get to your level. And someone you can hang out with, get drunk with and laugh at each other’s stupidity.
But being on the road chasing gigs is something she wishes she could change because for any given weekend, she will have a music show to perform at in western Uganda. “That is when I miss home but it is patience and communication that keeps us going,” she adds.

Other musical couples who work together

Geoffrey Lutaaya and Irene Namatovu

Jemimah Sanyu and Legend P

Catherine Kusasira and Fred Sseruga

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