Ugandan music may have no shortage of talent, but Samson Kasumba believes the industry has a serious management problem.
The prominent news anchor argues that artists need managers with enough business experience and authority to make difficult decisions, including firing an artist when necessary.
In a post on X, he named Victoria University Vice Chancellor Lawrence Muganga, Next Media CEO Kin Kariisa, and businessman George Michael “Mike” Mukula as the kind of people he would like to see managing artists.
If we are to improve local music you need to have people like Lawrence Muganga, Kin Kariisa, and Mukula to manage artists. Then you would have an artist that is managed by a real manager that can fire them.
That last part gets to the heart of Kasumba’s argument.
He believes many artists prefer managers they can control rather than professionals who can hold them accountable.
Swangz Avenue, he suggests, offers a different model, with a management structure that gives its managers real authority.
Very few people can stay at Swangz Avenue very long because there is a real management regime and artistes want to manage people who manage them.
Kasumba then takes his argument to the international stage, contrasting Uganda’s artist-management relationships with what he sees in the American music business.
In the US you don’t have artistes richer than their managers!
But his biggest tease comes at the end, when he hints at what could happen if one unnamed artist got the right manager.
Imagine if……was managed by one of the two I mentioned……..
So, which Ugandan artist would you love to see managed by Lawrence Muganga, Kin Kariisa or Mike Mukula?
If we are to improve local music you need to have people like @ReachDrMuganga and @KKariisa @mukulaa to manage artists. Then you would have an artist that is managed by a real manager that can fire them. Very few people can stay at Swangz Avenue very long because there is a real…
— Samson Kasumba (@SamsonMKasumba) August 12, 2026