During a recent conversation on Next Radio, singer Lil Pazo made a statement that stayed with me:
Ba urban artistes muja kuffa enjala mu Uganda.
Loosely translated, he was saying that Ugandan urban artistes are going to die of hunger in Uganda.
His argument was straightforward. Ugandans understand Luganda and their respective local languages. Therefore, artists making music that sounds international, alternative or heavily influenced by R&B, hip-hop, and other global sounds may struggle to connect with the mass Ugandan audience.
I disagreed with him, not necessarily because there is no commercial truth in what he was saying. There probably is. I disagreed because his argument opened a much bigger question:
What exactly qualifies something as Ugandan music?
And perhaps an even more uncomfortable one:
Who gets to decide?
What Makes Something African?
Think about African fashion.
When somebody says “African wear,” many people’s minds immediately go to colourful prints, traditional patterns, barkcloth, kitenge and other recognisable aesthetics.
But what if a Ugandan designer makes a black suit in Kampala? Is that African fashion? What if the material is imported but the designer, tailor and creative concept are Ugandan?
What if an African designer makes something inspired by Japanese streetwear? Does the garment stop being African because it does not visually announce Africa?
The same confusion exists in music.
When we say “Ugandan music,” are we talking about language, instrumentation, rhythm, subject matter, the nationality of the musician, or simply music created from the experience of being Ugandan?
Because depending on the answer, we may have unintentionally excluded an entire generation of Ugandan musicians from Ugandan music.
Uganda’s Music Has Never Existed in Isolation
The idea of a completely culturally untouched Ugandan popular sound is difficult to defend historically.
Ugandan popular music has absorbed reggae, dancehall, R&B, hip-hop, Congolese sounds and other outside influences for decades. Academic work examining Uganda’s popular music has similarly noted the major influence of Jamaican dancehall, reggae, hip-hop, R&B, South African kwaito, and Congolese soukous on what eventually developed into contemporary Ugandan pop.
Yet once those influences passed through Ugandan musicians long enough, we stopped questioning whether the resulting music belonged here.
Dancehall came from Jamaica. Reggae did too. Hip-hop has American roots, while R&B developed largely from African American musical traditions. Soukous, meanwhile, emerged from the Congo.
But Ugandan musicians touched these sounds, mixed them with our languages, experiences, melodies and personalities, and eventually made versions of them that we comfortably call Ugandan.
So why should today’s generation suddenly have to pass a cultural purity test?
Maybe Lil Pazo Is Right About One Thing
There is still a commercial reality that should not be ignored. Language creates immediate intimacy. If somebody sings something funny, painful or romantic in Luganda to an audience that speaks Luganda, there is a cultural shortcut. Certain jokes do not need explaining. Certain expressions carry emotional weight that an English translation cannot completely reproduce.
Uganda’s mainstream music market has historically reflected that. Reporting on regional artists trying to penetrate Kampala has noted the longstanding dominance of Kampala-based artists, many of whom sing in Luganda or combine Luganda and English.
So when Lil Pazo argues that local-language music has a commercial advantage, dismissing that completely would be dishonest.
But there is a difference between saying local-language music has an advantage and saying music without that advantage has no place here. That distinction matters.
Ugandans Already Listen to “International-Sounding” Music
Here is where the argument becomes complicated.
Ugandans listen to Chris Brown, Drake and Burna Boy. South African music also reaches Ugandan audiences even when many listeners cannot translate the lyrics. We have danced to Congolese music without understanding every word.
So clearly, understanding every lyric is not a prerequisite for Ugandans enjoying music.
Joshua Baraka once made almost exactly this argument when discussing Uganda’s newer generation of artists. He argued that it is unfair to assume Ugandans cannot consume English-language music when the same audiences already consume international artists.
Which raises an uncomfortable possibility. Maybe the problem is not that Ugandans cannot understand urban Ugandan music. Perhaps we have simply been conditioned to accept certain sounds more readily when they come from somewhere else.
An American can give us R&B and we accept it as R&B. A Nigerian can experiment with alternative Afrobeats, while a South African can reinvent amapiano.
But when a Ugandan creates something that does not immediately sound like what we have historically defined as “Ugandan music,” we sometimes ask:
But who is this music for?
Why can’t the answer be us?
The Urban Audience Is Ugandan Too
This is perhaps the part of the conversation that bothers me most.
There is sometimes a tendency to speak about the “urban audience” as though it exists outside Uganda.
But the young person in Ntinda listening to alternative R&B is Ugandan. The university student obsessed with hip-hop is Ugandan. The girl in Kampala who prefers soul to Kidandali is Ugandan. The teenager discovering indie music is Ugandan, and so is the creative community attending intimate live shows with 150 people instead of filling an arena.
A smaller audience is not a foreign audience. It is simply a smaller Ugandan audience.
And every cultural movement begins with somebody serving a minority before that minority becomes large enough to be called a market.
Uganda’s newer generation already reflects this. Artists such as Kohen Jaycee, Ceee, Akeine, Kamanzi, Elijah Kitaka and Joshua Baraka have been discussed as part of a new school deliberately creating sounds capable of travelling beyond the traditional local market.
That should not make them less Ugandan.
Joshua Baraka May Be the Most Important Counterargument
Joshua Baraka’s career makes this entire conversation particularly interesting.
“Nana” did not become important because it sounded like somebody’s traditional definition of Ugandan popular music. It became important because a Ugandan made something compelling enough to travel.
Baraka has since collaborated across African and international markets and built audiences beyond Uganda. Rolling Stone Africa reported in 2025 that he had surpassed 20 million worldwide streams and toured Europe, while more recent reporting has documented his continued international expansion.
And yet his Ugandan identity has not disappeared.
In fact, international coverage increasingly presents it as part of what makes his story interesting. Baraka himself has spoken about realising through travel that human experiences translate across borders and that what ultimately distinguishes an artist is putting more of themselves into the music.
That may be the answer.
Ugandan music does not necessarily have to sound traditionally Ugandan.
It can sound like a Ugandan interpreting the world.
But What If They Don’t Make Much Money?
This is where I fundamentally differ from the “muja kuffa enjala” argument.
We have become dangerously comfortable measuring artistic legitimacy through money.
Of course artists need to eat, and musicians should understand business. At the same time, nobody should romanticise poverty.
But art has never existed exclusively because it was commercially efficient.
Someone has to experiment. Another artist has to make the strange record. A different musician has to organise the show that only 80 people understand. Eventually, somebody has to introduce a sound that initially makes everybody ask:
“What is this?”
Because today’s niche can become tomorrow’s mainstream.
And even when it does not, that does not automatically make the art unsuccessful.
If 500 people deeply love an artist’s work, build a community around it and discover parts of themselves through it, something meaningful has happened. Not every musician needs to become the biggest musician in Uganda. Some simply want to make extraordinary music. There should be room for that too.
What Would Mainstreaming Urban Ugandan Music Actually Do?
This is where the conversation should move from tolerance to opportunity.
Giving urban and alternative Ugandan music more radio rotation, festival stages, television appearances, interviews, playlists and institutional support would not require removing local-language music.
The cake can become bigger. Mainstream exposure could create more musical diversity. A radio hour containing Kadongo Kamu, dancehall, Luganda pop, R&B, alternative music and hip-hop is arguably a more honest representation of contemporary Uganda than pretending we all consume one sound.
It could also create exportable artists . If Ugandan musicians are allowed to experiment with globally accessible sounds while retaining their own identity, some may find audiences much larger than Uganda’s domestic market.
Baraka’s experience is evidence that this possibility is no longer theoretical. His breakout generated regional pride precisely because a Ugandan record had travelled.
It creates new creative economies too.
Different music requires different producers, venues, fashion, visual directors, photographers, DJs, festivals and media platforms.
A healthy alternative scene is not just ten musicians.
It is an ecosystem.
And perhaps most importantly, mainstreaming these artists tells young Ugandans that they do not have to imitate the previous generation’s definition of Ugandan culture to belong to it.
Local Does Not Have to Mean Traditional
There is an important distinction here.
We should preserve local languages and celebrate traditional instruments. Indigenous musical forms also deserve protection, while artists should be encouraged to understand where they come from.
But preservation and evolution are not enemies.
Culture survives partly because every generation inherits it and then does something slightly different with it.
The Ugandan musician making R&B today may put a Luganda phrase somewhere. Another may use an African percussion pattern, while someone else may mention Kampala experiences entirely in English. A different artist may have no obviously Ugandan musical element whatsoever.
And perhaps all four are still making Ugandan music.
Because Uganda is not only our past.
Uganda is also whatever Ugandans are becoming .
Maybe We Need a Bigger Definition
Perhaps the mistake is trying to define Ugandan music by sound at all.
Maybe Ugandan music is music created by Ugandan people and communities, informed, consciously or unconsciously, by the lives they have lived here.
That definition makes room for Lil Pazo, King Saha, Joshua Baraka and Elijah Kitaka. It also makes room for the rapper recording drill in a bedroom in Kampala, the singer experimenting with soul and the musician singing entirely in Runyankore, Luganda, Ateso or English.
None has to invalidate the other. The local-language mainstream and the urban alternative scene do not need to fight over which one represents Uganda.
They represent different Ugandas.
And maybe that is exactly what a culturally confident country should sound like.
So perhaps the response to “ba urban artistes muja kuffa enjala mu Uganda” should not simply be an argument about whether urban artists will eventually make money.
There is a bigger question.
If these artists are Ugandan, their experiences are Ugandan and the communities listening to them are Ugandan, at what point did we decide their music wasn’t Ugandan enough?
Maybe the goal should not be forcing every Ugandan artist towards the centre.
Maybe Uganda needs to expand the centre until more of its artists can fit inside it.