Music
Landmark
Bobi Wine
born 1982
Ghetto President: from the Kamwokya slums to the biggest challenge Museveni has faced
Landmark is level 2 of 4 in the Uganda Hall of Fame: a first that opened a door, or the pre-eminent figure of their generation in this country. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
One of the biggest musicians East Africa has produced, who turned a career of songs about the slums into a political movement, won a parliamentary seat, and took forty per cent of the vote against a president who has held power since before he was born.
Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu grew up in Kamwokya, a slum in Kampala, took a degree in music and drama at Makerere, and became the dominant figure in Ugandan popular music through the 2000s — dancehall and Afrobeat records, a hundred-odd singles, and the self-given title of Ghetto President.
The songs turned political gradually and then all at once. In 2017 he won a by-election in Kyadondo East as an independent, and led the parliamentary opposition to the removal of the presidential age limit — the amendment that allowed Yoweri Museveni to stand again. He founded the National Unity Platform and stood for president in 2021, taking around thirty-five per cent of the declared vote against Museveni's fifty-eight, with an electorate in which three quarters of people are younger than the incumbent's time in office.
The cost has been heavy and is documented. He was arrested in Arua in 2018 and, he says, beaten severely in military custody; his driver was shot dead. He has been repeatedly detained, his concerts banned, his home surrounded by soldiers for eleven days after the 2021 election, and dozens of his supporters killed or disappeared. He continues to lead the opposition and to record.
The songs turned political gradually and then all at once. In 2017 he won a by-election in Kyadondo East as an independent, and led the parliamentary opposition to the removal of the presidential age limit — the amendment that allowed Yoweri Museveni to stand again. He founded the National Unity Platform and stood for president in 2021, taking around thirty-five per cent of the declared vote against Museveni's fifty-eight, with an electorate in which three quarters of people are younger than the incumbent's time in office.
The cost has been heavy and is documented. He was arrested in Arua in 2018 and, he says, beaten severely in military custody; his driver was shot dead. He has been repeatedly detained, his concerts banned, his home surrounded by soldiers for eleven days after the 2021 election, and dozens of his supporters killed or disappeared. He continues to lead the opposition and to record.
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