Stand-up comedian MC Kapale has lifted the lid on the harsh realities of Uganda’s comedy industry, revealing that he once earned a paltry Shs15,000 per performance despite being one of the country’s pioneering comedians.
Kapale made the revelation while reflecting on his early days performing at veteran actor and comedian John Segawa’s famous Kandolindoli comedy shows, which were staged at Bat Valley Theatre in Kampala.
According to the outspoken comedian, the money he received was nowhere near enough to cover his daily expenses, let alone fuel his car to travel for performances.
By the time I used to perform comedy at John Segawa’s Kandolindoli events, he would pay me Shs15,000 per night.
The veteran funnyman went on to claim that the meagre pay forced him to come up with an alternative way of making money from live performances.
Kapale says he is the comedian who introduced the now-popular ‘luseke’ culture, where audience members voluntarily tip comedians during performances, because surviving on promoters’ payments alone had become impossible.
I’m the one who started ‘luseke’ at comedy shows because he (John Segawa) would pay me Shs15,000 yet I had a car to fuel. People keep belittling us and saying we never worked for our success, but the truth is we worked for peanuts while paving the way for today’s generation of comedians.
He also took a swipe at some of the promoters he worked with in those days, accusing them of exploiting comedians instead of rewarding them fairly.
Even back then, the promoters were not good-hearted people. We would sympathize with them and show them love, but they simply took advantage of us and benefited from our hard work.
Kapale’s revelations sparked conversations about how Uganda’s veteran comedians struggled through years of poor pay and exploitation before helping transform stand-up comedy into one of the country’s most successful entertainment industries.
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