Music flows in Mugabi’s blood

When singer Kenneth Mugabi was handed Senior Six Joint Admission Board (JAB) forms, he was unsure what he wanted to do with his life except that music was his passion. So he told one of his friends that he was going to put music as his number one choice. His friends mistook his choice for a joke. Mugabi went ahead and applied for a Bachelor’s of Arts (BA) degree in Music.
Music was part of his life, from a tender age. In nursery school, he was forced to perform on Speech days but when he joined primary school, it gave him pleasure singing in the school choir.
He would vary vocals as a soprano and alto. He carried on the passion to secondary school where he was exposed to secular music. During the Senior Six study break, he joined friends, Isaac Labong and a one Shaban. Together, they formed a music group named Aliens Aly. They were rappers.
“We would perform in slums such as Kabowa on Entebbe Road, Lyasunku in Mpigi District. We would perform to downloaded beats (demos). The group lasted for six months,” Mugabi recalls.
When he joined Makerere University in 2011, he could no longer be regular because of the academic programme and schedule but there were instruments he could learn and practice on. This started him on a whole new outlook of music

At home, his mother was musical and she had introduced him to theoretical guitar lessons and given him a book. At the music faculty, Mugabi found a guitar with broken strings on which he started practicing codes.
And as he practiced, he also composed his first song titled Tondeka, based on a previous relationship. Then his book was stolen. He remained with the guitar, and kept it.
“I was acquiring knowledge in class on song writing. I wanted to become a soul artiste and whoever I told about it, told me that I would sound like Maurice Kirya. I chose to be different. I did Afro-soul. That is when I wrote Kibun’omu,” he explains.
Mugabi was also keen on learning how to play other instruments. He picked up the tube fiddle and started learning how to play it, the same for the keyboard.

Courting luck
At the end of his first academic year at university, in 2011, Tusker Project Fame announced a call for talent. Mugabi participated but did not make it to the top three. He did not back down.
The following year, Coca-Cola Rated Next also called out for talent. This time, he was part of the top five contestants. During the contests, he was singing his original compositions.
These included Gwe weka, Nyonyozi, Amaaso G’otulo and Kibun’omu (Wishing Star) which must have made an impression on the judges. And for Mugabi, not winning was a beginning of a journey. He decided not to look back. “I felt raised and encouraged when my story was run in the newspaper and the competition was aired on television. I felt I needed to work harder when everyone lost interest in me after the Rated Next competition,” he recalls.
Mugabi needed a place to do internship and it was not hard to make a choice. He had admired being part of Qwela Band for a while and he applied to do his industrial training there.
“I admired their music because it was different from what radio stations played. I had watched them promote their Afrotopia album on NTV’s Login entertainment so I decided to apply. They accepted my application. I was taken on alongside other interns such as Happy K, Roscoe Kayongo and a one Erinah. We used to perform at Jazzville Bar in Bugolobi. I used to perform my originals,” the artiste recounts.

Getting noticed
Qwela’s Band leader, Joe Kahirimbanyi says the first time he met Mugabi was after Coca Cola Rated Next. He did not know who he was by then, except that he was as an intern from Makerere.
“It was the first time they sent us interns. He really did not bother to try and make an impression with me at the time. He was quiet and unassuming. I walked out of the room to take a call. When I returned I heard this unbelievable sound coming from the room. This boy was sitting at the piano playing and singing so passionately (the song was Kibun’omu) he sounded absolutely amazing. I stood at the door and listened till he was done. Then walked in and we resumed our programme. I took special note of him,” Kahirimbanyi recalls.

As he started to get to know Mugabi, he started to recognise his other side, the passionate dreamer, ready to work hard and do what it takes. The intern had an insatiable hunger for performance and the young ambition to be relevant and make a difference.
“The opening at Qwela was fulfilling career-wise but also helped me survive at campus. I would survive off stipends I was given from performing,” he recalls. Today, Mugabi still shares stage with Qwela but is on a solo journey.
He has released an album titled Kibun’omu under Qwanza, a talent management company. The title track was inspired by his high school love where he loved someone who was physically close but always seemed far. He recorded the song at the First Love Studios. It was produced by Fred Wallace.
The song is one of many favourites at his weekly shows, alongside the Arpeggios Band, at The Lawns, a hangout along Acacia Avenue, in Kololo, Kampala.

The choice for the name of the band was inspired by his earlier days as a luminary. Arpeggios is an Italian word for ‘broken code’. He is the band leader. The band comprises of friends he went to school with.
These include Ronald Bukenya who plays the keys, akogo (finger piano) and adungu (arched harp). Lawrence Matovu plays the bass guitar and percussions. Aloysius Migadde plucks the guitar too, and doubles on the percussions.
Eugene Gum sounds the drums, plays keys and produces the band’s shows. Shebah Umwiza is a vocalist and so for Mugabi who also plays the acoustic guitar and tube fiddle.
Mugabi’s dream is to be the change he would like to see, produce better music with good lyrical content and well-produced.

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