Sammy Kasule: The man, music and his six strings

They say in the beginning, all musicians were equal, then some became bassists. Call it the groove, the bass guitar doesn’t present itself with lots of flair, yet in a song, it provides the bed, the gist of the entire sound.
There is something that comes with playing this six-stringed instrument that takes its players on a journey.
Sammy Kasule, probably one of Uganda’s finest bassists, has been on such journeys many times; watching him strum away is always engaging for the audience, he brings back memories, yet for the man, he seems lost in another world.

He briefly closes his eyes as his fingers effortlessly pull on the strings. Kasule is a gifted singer, musician and an exceptional guitarist. He possesses a gold disk award from CBS Records International, a reward and proof of selling a considerable volume of music on the world scene.
He has no idea of how many albums he has to his name but his stage delivery is quenching to one who appreciates live music. He comes from a modest crop of composers without airs, yet he is responsible for very strong artistic works that have stood the taste of time, songs such as Ekitoobero, Mvua Ya Amani, Ziwuuna, Sina, Makondere, Makosa, Ozze, Njabala and Twejukanye.

“I am just another musician. A simple guy who loves music and likes to play,” he aptly describes himself. Over half a century ago, he cut his musical teeth.
It started with interest to listen to Radio Uganda which then played songs of artistes such as Fred Masagazi, Eclas Kawalya and Elly Wamala, he always sang along.
In the beginning, his father tried to arrest the passion by slapping the youngster, but he later realised it was more than a stubborn trait that had grown within Kasule.

Nurturing self
A love for music was burgeoning and manifesting at quite an early age; at 10, he made his first guitar, from sugarcane storks.
“When my mother saw it, she said ‘omwana ayagala kutwononekako’ (our child is getting spoilt). She destroyed the guitar,” the musician recollects.
He went on to make another guitar, which she also destroyed. He made a third one, which he hid in a bush by the well.
Whenever his mother sent him to fetch water, he beamed, excited at the opportunity to go out, pick and play his guitar, even for a few seconds.

It was not a professional guitar; just a piece of wood with strings but the youngster enjoyed frolicking, anticipating to become a guitarist one day. In the late 1960s, he joined high school and with freedom came more exposure.
He was attracted to the music of Dede Majoro, a lead guitarist with Elly Wamala’s Mascots Band, when he visited Light College Katikamu where he attended secondary school.

“He brought (this) box, acoustic guitar. I looked at it and I was awed, and then he played and girls surrounded him. I also got inspired by Eclas Kawalya. His father was a Muluka (parish) chief in Masulita where I was brought up. He would pass by on his way to visit his father. He was a clean, handsome boy who drove a Vesper sports car. I would run to the road just to see him pass by,” Kasule recalls.

At the time, Kawalya’s songs enjoyed good airplay. In 1969, he dropped out of school before he could complete his Ordinary Level (O-Level). He joined Superphonics Band, founded by Kenyans.

Taking to the stage
It played at New Life Bar in Mengo, a Kampala suburb. There, he met Charles Ssenyonga, who played the electric guitar. He asked Kasule the key he played but had no idea.
He was asked to sing and the members of the band were impressed. They let him join. A month later, Ssenyonga left the band to join another. He took on the mantle.

He had been privately practicing with the guitar codes as he had observed Ssenyonga play, as well as Dede.
There was panic when Ssenyonga left but when Kasule was asked to rise to the challenge, he was ready. His first night, he was asked to play renditions of Congolese music legend Franco Luambo Makiadi and he impressed.
He would later change roles as a bass guitarist. He has been plucking strings of the guitar ever since. “I have been to so many countries playing with great musicians. I have played with Amadou Ja. I have curtain-raised for Manu Dibango in London and Bonny M when they visited Kenya. I have played with very good musicians in Sweden, Japan and Latinos that were amazed when they saw me play the bass guitar.”

Working with Philly Lutaaya
Kasule had left Kampala in 1973 owing to the Amin regime. He met with Philly Bongoley Lutaaya, who was a member of the Vox National Band that too play at New Life Bar. The two teamed up and recorded music and later became good friends. At the time, Kasule was putting the final touches to an album titled Shauri Yako.
“Philly was easy to like. He was a very social guy. He didn’t have celebrity airs at all. It was easy for us to become friends,” he recollects about his musical friend.

After the fall of president Idi Amin, Uganda experienced tumultuous times, which led many Ugandans to opt for safety in exile. Lutaaya went to Nairobi, where he met and linked up with Kasule.
The duo were fans of the likes of Abba, Earth Wind & Fire, Cool & the Gang and Bonny M so one of their aspirations was to travel to the Western world in order to record in well-established and facilitated studios.

Lutaaya soon left for Sweden and promised to invite Kasule to join him. Sweden had been a hub for different local artistes such as Fred Ssemwogerere, Hope Mukasa, Shem Makanga, Frank Mbalire, Joseph Nsubuga and Richard Mudungu. And he indeed did in 1985 but was denied a residential permit and thus he went to Holland and Japan.
When he eventually got there, Lutaaya and friends had formed Savannah, a band that he joined.
They were later joined by guitarist Billy Mutebi and drummer Gerald Nadibanga.

CreatingBorn in Africa
In 1986, during winter, the band helped Lutaaya in doing his hit song Born in Africa. “Me, Philly, Billy and Gerald were the ones that helped Philly record that album (Born in Africa) and it came out very well. Our dream had started materialising. Destiny had it that the Swedish government turned down the requests for residential permits by Kasule and Mutebi. But Amadou had seen him perform so the two kept in touch.
When he was in Tokyo, Japan, the Malian musician called Kasule and told him he had worked on his papers’ to allow him to stay in Sweden. At the time, Kasule was working in Nairobi, Kenya but wanted to move to the Western world to enable his children have a better education as a way of securing a good future for them.

When the opportunity to travel and stay in Sweden was availed, he relocated along with his family, of two children and the wife, in 1991. He thanks God that it went well.
Much as life in Sweden was all that, Kasule decided to return in 2014.He has played with Afrigo Band. He is a founding member of Ziwuuna Band in which he is a headline act alongside fellow veteran musician, Mbalire, of Bamuleete, Ndikwambala Ng’ekkooti and Silikusula fame.
This gives the musician a fresh musical breath whose musical performances have largely been with Kenyans and Congolese. He speaks Lingala and Swahili.
He reaches for his guitar, to explain the wrong idea of labelling soukous and rhumba as Lingala. “Lingala is not a music genre. It is a language.” Kasule was born with five siblings, two girls and three boys.

Frank Mbalire- friend, fellow band member
I met Sammy in 1969 during a recording session at one of the music studios in Ndeeba, a Kampala suburb. We had each gone to record songs. From then on, we would bump into one another. In 1973, I heard that he had gone to Kenya. In 1980, we met in Nairobi where we collaborated on an album with Philly Bongoley Lutaaya. In 1985, we met in Stockholm, Sweden where we became members of Savannah Band. Sammy is a talented and hardworking musician. He is a a down-to-earth person, gentle and kind. He is one person who will take off a shirt and give it to a person. He doesn’t like to see people suffering. He is always writing songs and we play the guitar. We are founders of Ziwuuna Band. We stay together and when we have no errands to run, we play guitar.

Nuwa Wamala Nnyanzi- artist, fan
Sammy Kasule is a legend of Uganda’s contemporary music in the real sense of the word. At a young age and as early as the late 1960s, he was a bassist in the famous Vipers band led by the late Raphael Kawumba. In the same band was the late Swisseman Ngoy, vocalist and dancer. For a none Congolese to be included in a first class Congolese band at his age at that time, was no mean achievement. Fast forward...his stint in Kenya in the 1980s with the then immensely popular Vundumuna Band, another Congolese outfit, saw him yet again prove his prowess as a musician. He introduced orchestra instruments into a Luganda folk song, Kagutema and it became so popular that no performance was complete without it. Many bands in Kenya to date play it to packed floors. When he moved to Sweden, together with other Ugandan and Swedish musicians, they formed the Savannah Band, yet another successful band. Back to Uganda and teaming up with another legendary musician Frank Mbalire, they have formed Ziwuna Band, which has rekindled senior citizens’ interest in clubing and has reunited many who had spent ages without meeting. To me, Sammy Kasule is our golden treasure, musically speaking.