ENTERTAINMENT
Uganda’s most popular live band
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Words by Kalungi Kabuye Words by Kalungi Kabuye n April 1979, if you had asked Moses Matovu the prospects of the survival of Afrigo Band, he would probably have told you that they were very low. It was a chaotic time in Uganda after President Idi Amin lost the war against Tanzania and Ugandan exiles. Long suffering Ugandans expressed their suppressed frustrations and anger in an orgy of looting. Afrigo did not survive unscathed. “Because we had been playing at Cape Town Villas, one of President Amin’s favourite spots, all our instruments were looted,” Matovu remembers. “We were left with nothing - not even a guitar or a set of drums. I believed then that it was the end of the band.” More than four decades later, Afrigo is very active and arguably the country’s most popular live band; a testimony of its enduring ability to survive. It has been a journey of surviving incredible odds - reaching incredible heights of success, then down to record lows, and up again! They have seen band members murdered, others fled the country into exile, and others left to form their bands - but Afrigo has survived. By 1974, the Cranes Band was one of the most popular in the land. There was a rivalry with the then Tames Band, led by Peterson Mutebi, but Cranes was the people’s favourite. And then disaster struck. One day, in April of the same year, the band members gathered for a regular 28
NG'AALI
DECEMBER 2020 - FEBRUARY 2021
rehearsal, and the management (Sam Kawalya and John Clyde Mayanja) had an announcement to make. “We’re sorry, but we’re closing the band. Things are not going as smoothly as we want,” Matovu remembers Kawalya telling them. “It came as a shock to us; we didn’t know what to do. We had been playing together for a long time, we were like family. Where would we all go?”
Below: The Cranes Band in the early 70s. Members were later to form Afrigo Band
