Music
Landmark
Geoffrey Oryema
1953 – 2018
Exile — smuggled out of Uganda in a car boot, and the album that followed
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
Amin's men killed his father, a cabinet minister. At twenty-four he was smuggled over the border in the boot of a car. Fourteen years later Brian Eno produced the record he made about it.
Geoffrey Oryema was born on 16 April 1953. In 1977, after the murder of his father Erinayo Wilson Oryema, a minister in Idi Amin's government, he fled the country at twenty-four, smuggled across the border in the boot of a car, and began forty years in exile.
His 1990 debut album Exile was produced by Brian Eno for Peter Gabriel's Real World Records, with Eno and Gabriel singing backing vocals, and is regarded as a classic of the label and of world music. He died on 22 June 2018.
His 1990 debut album Exile was produced by Brian Eno for Peter Gabriel's Real World Records, with Eno and Gabriel singing backing vocals, and is regarded as a classic of the label and of world music. He died on 22 June 2018.
- Wikipedia — Geoffrey Oryema
- Real World Records — Geoffrey Oryema, 1953–2018
- Face2Face Africa — After 40 years in exile, Ugandan musician Geoffrey Oryema returns home
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