Before Lord Fred Sebatta became known for his Kadongo Kamu music, he was building a different kind of reputation in the boxing ring, and the veteran singer still remembers just how much power he packed into his punches.
During an appearance on Music Taxi, Sebatta looked back on his younger days as a boxer and recalled the exercises they used to measure the force behind a boxer’s punch, claiming his own came in at 35kg.
They used to measure our punches to find out how much force someone could put into a punch. Mine measured 35kg, so I was not someone to joke with.
Those boxing skills later proved useful in a completely different setting.
As his music career took shape, Sebatta says he often found himself stepping in when performances became disorderly, particularly when rowdy individuals tried to disrupt shows where he and his colleagues had travelled to perform.
Rather than waiting for someone else to handle the trouble, he would personally intervene and use the physical presence he had developed through boxing to restore order.
Back then, I would always manhandle anyone who tried to cause chaos at the events and shows where we travelled to perform. I would always bring the situation back under control.
Some of those encounters apparently ended before they could escalate, especially once Sebatta got hold of the troublemakers by their T-shirt collars.
He recalled that the same people who had caused trouble would quickly start pleading with him before he escorted them out of the venue.
For Sebatta, the boxing ring may have belonged to an earlier chapter of his life, but the toughness he developed there continued to follow him whenever he took his music on the road.
In my youth, I was a boxer, and not the comon boxers. I was a heavyweight boxer – Fred Sebata.#SanyukaMusicTaxi #SanyukaUpdates pic.twitter.com/B0IUSaRKZt
— Sanyuka TV (@sanyukatv) September 3, 2026