Kato Lubwama: He brings luck to whatever he works on so... pay for that too

His radio jingles are catchy, creative and interesting, however, Kato Lubwama is the first person I have heard who charges clients for the luck/blessing upon his life which makes their products sell when he does an advert for them.

And he defends his point of view, “I charge for my talent, popularity which causes people to listen when I talk, personality, creativity and the luck that follows my life. I don’t know anyone who charges for this luck and people may laugh it off as a joke but I am serious.

I have never advertised for a company and it fails. Instead, new companies become instantly successful when I do their adverts.” He is very firm when explaining this and if you’re an ardent listener to local radio stations, then you have probably laughed at his silliness in those ads. It is this silliness that hooks and reels in potential customers.

With no idea about the number of ads he has done ever since he started out, he talks to two workmates, still about jingles, who pass by during the interview at the offices of CBS in Bulange, Mengo.

With one, it is about working on a new assignment for a jingle, and with another it is about whether their payment has been effected. But this does not mean that you will just walk into CBS radio station offices and contract the services of Kato Lubwama for a radio jingle. He has to “be in the mood”.

And he explains, “There are times when I cannot be creative, when I just feel angry, when even if you give me money I will tell you, I am sorry. I think there is something that gives me inspiration, something spiritual because I am a very spiritual person.

Should say it is spirits that cause me to do that? He asks. He explains that one company comes and he will immediately work on their product while for another, he instead gets angry and refuses. And he doesn’t know what causes that.

Picking interest
Kato Lubwama says he grew up in Idi Amin’s regime with no entertainment other than theatre. There was a comedian then called Dan Zirimenya who used to direct a play called Obwavu Musolo and also do jingles on radios. “I found them interesting,” he remembers.
After completing his degree in Music, Dance and Drama from Makerere University, where he also studied radio and TV production, his talent was sharpened further, making him almost invincible in this field.

What it takes to do a jingle
How does he keep effortlessly churning out one hilarious jingle after another? Regardless of the time in which you want an advert, Kato Lubwama can produce one. He says that what is happening around him inspires him when writing these jingles.

A professional playwright, actor and director, his ads are stories with a beginning, a body and an end. But these are done in, at most, a minute. He writes his ads in what he calls reverse style which involves creating a scenario that cannot happen ordinarily.

Case in point is the ad about the phony land broker who tells his client who has bought land that he should build at night because the ghosts in that village are very ruthless. He explains that ordinarily, people do not build in the night and this is the secret to his catchy adverts.

He cannot remember all the ads he has done down the years and he does not have any favourites other than what listeners call the best. There is the one of Picfare, where a deep-voiced boy who has repeated a class three times blames the kind of note books his father has been buying him for his failures. He adds that many of the words he uses go on to become used in everyday speech. One such is “Beera mu class” which he uses in an Airtel TV ad.

The challenges
Kato Lubwama feels he would do an even better job with TV ads but the challenge is in the newness of advertising in Uganda. He says people are just taking to advertising in Uganda and do not quite understand its impact. Secondly, TV ads are very expensive because they demand a lot, camera equipment and all. “They can cost between Shs5m to Shs25m but not many companies have that kind of money,” he adds. Apparently, he has even done adverts in Luganda that have to be translated in English and he doesn’t get paid separately for these.

There are adverts that Kato Lubwama isn’t comfortable doing. For example those about sanitary towels are out of the question. And there are those he says, are quite hard to dramatise to satisfaction. Building materials are a case in point. However he has a good one about iron bars that bend like sausages that is quite hilarious.

About how much this may exactly cost, Kato Lubwama says, “It depends.” He charges from Shs500,000 to Shs3m. Not many companies have that kind of money, so he sometimes gets one or two requests for an advert in month. November is the peak month for him as companies advertise for Christmas.

If you’re not familiar with Kato Lubwama’s antics and are looking to have a hearty laugh any day any time, you do not have to go watch comedy but to simply tune in to any local FM and you might find yourself calling him up and paying him for making your day.

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