The Future of Hip-Hop in Uganda?: Babaluku’s Youth Movement
By Rebecca Harshbarger–
Babaluku, a 30-year-old Ugandan artist based in Canada who pioneered Lugaflow and supports the Ugandan youth movement.
Babaluku knows how to find good music in Uganda. The 30-year-old community youth activist who lives abroad in Vancouver, Canada, can be described in many ways. A social entrepreneur, a hip-hop artist, and a producer, Babaluku initially became known as a hip-hop artist who didn’t rap in English, but in Uganda’s indigenous languages. And in his case, Luganda. Babaluku was a founding member of the Bataka squad, an early hip-hop group in Uganda now made up of Babaluku, Tshila, and Krazy Native (Saba Saba). The group created the type of music known as Lugaflow, or Luganda hip-hop, entering the musical scene in 1994.
However, what’s on Babaluku’s mind these days are Ugandan youth, and the positive impact that hip-hop is having on their lives. Babaluku runs a nonprofit called the Bavubuka Foundation, where he works with kids all over Uganda to create rich music and build a grassroots youth movement from Kampala’s ghettos to Karamoja, in northeastern Uganda. Babaluku told Ugandans Abroad about a typical day in his life in Uganda, where he has returned every year since 2005 to work with youth. The foundation is based in Makindye, in one of the foundation’s projects called Bavubuka House. ”I wake up at ten a.m., but my kids will have already come to the property at 8 a.m.,” Babaluku said. ”MCs are freestyling, some kids are doing graffiti, some actors are asking for camera equipment, kids will come and say what’s up Babaluku, and thank me for what I’m doing for hip-hop in Uganda.”
Ugandan children rapping in indigenous languages.
Babaluku is doing new construction on the site, so he will often spend a day working on different parts of the structure, and then he takes the youth in the evening to take part in performances in Kampala. For example, he holds an event with his kids every Tuesday called Spoken Truth– and on Sunday, youth gather in Makindye for testimonials. ”Kids come and talk about their struggles, successes, pains, and joys,” Babaluku said. Kids hang out until 3 a.m. with Babaluku, rehearsing for upcoming shows. One activity he admits can’t be beat. ”And of course, I take them out for pizza at Nando’s,” he told me affectionately, referencing a popular hangout in Kampala.
I first met Babaluku at a concert in New York at Drom, a restaurant and lounge in the East Village. Kinobe and Soul Beat Africa, a musical group that features traditional Ugandan and African studios, performed dreamscape melodies with kalimbas, koros, and other traditional Ugandan instruments. When Babaluku wasn’t listening intently to the unique sounds as they drifted over the Lower East Side, he was chatting with different people about positive work being done in Uganda.
Babaluku left Uganda when he was twelve and moved to Canada, but goes back every year.
Born Silas Balabyekkubo, but known largely as Babaluku, his presence manages to appear both mellow and thoughtful. However, this belies Babaluku’s initial struggles when he left Uganda at the age of twelve, when his family moved to Ontario, Canada. ”It was a 360 twist,” he said. ”You go from running around the village to riding bikes down the block, I was in culture shock. I had never known about racism as a kid, but here in 7th grade kids [in Canada] knew what racism was. I didn’t know about it– when I first came out here, it was the first time i heard the word racism.” Babaluku left his school in Makindye and joined an all-white school, where he felt like an outsider. “It was a new experience, racial profiling, I didn’t even know what they called it.”
To this day, he still sometimes feels frustrated with Ugandans living abroad, though appreciative of the community. He wants the diaspora to return home whenever they can. ”If you are a baseball player, you can play ball with kids in Uganda,” he said. ”If you are a musician in North America, you can sing with kids in Uganda. Let’s celebrate life together.”
When Babaluku began traveling back to Uganda, he expected to get a respite from feeling like an outsider in Canada. However, this was not the case. ”I arrived in Entebbe, and the customs guy asked me why I have dreads, why I didn’t look like the white man next to me, why I wasn’t wearing a three-piece suit,” he said. ”I left North America struggling…I thought I would find the freedom to be liberated, with the people who are free.” Worse, many of the friends and family he left behind in Uganda had died while he was away.
“Some of those lost to AIDS, different accidents, murder,” he said. ”It was all the different things that take people in Africa. I had to walk those streets again and rebuild a new family.”
Creating art at Bavubuka House.
Describing contemporary Ugandan life, the artist feels that the country still has a colonized mentality that permeates everything. ”They say what’s black is not good,” he said. ”There’s a huge inferiority complex going on– that’s why Uganda is not shifting forward. Parents are paying for school fees, not even knowing what the product for their kids is.”
Zubi, an industrial artist who teaches at Bavubuka House.
These feelings led Babaluku to rap in Luganda, and to encourage other artists to do the same. ”Lugaflow is the definition of indigenous hip-hop,” he told Ugandans Abroad. ”It has started to take off in Mbarara, northern Uganda, Jinja, even in Karamoja. You hear there are kids rapping there! Hip-hop has given children an industry of their own that no one can regulate it. It’s inspiring to hear people rapping in their native tongues.”
Babaluku says that many teens are using hip-hop as a platform to make t-shirs, gear, and other merchandise, bringing out their entrepreneurial spirit. ”The new young ones coming from the ghettos and villages speaking different dialects have given us a beautiful outlook on what hip-hop will become,” he said.
Hip-hop’s music and culture came from New York in the 1970s, but its beats and rhythms had strong Caribbean and African roots, borrowing from Africa’s rich musical traditions. Even the word hip has been linked to Senegal’s Wolof word “hepi,” which means to open one’s eyes. Hip-hop went full circle and grew in popularity on the African continent in the 1980s and 1990s, and the strong emotions of the genre had a strong impact on African youth. Many could relate to lyrics that spoke honestly of poverty, violence, and corruption. The first African hip-hop artists initially rapped in English, but many are now embracing songs in their indigenous languages. In Tanzania, for examples, many artists began performing in Kiswahili. Hip-hop has a particularly strong presence in Nigeria and Senegal, but East Africa has also birthed its own movement. ”Kenya and Tanzania are ahead of Uganda, but Uganda’s coming to come up right now,” Babaluku told Ugandans Abroad.
Mural near Bavubuka House, Kampala (Makindye).
One example of this is the foundation’s Bavubuka House, whose youth are known as Bavubuka*All Starz, is home to meetings that often fill with more than a hundred children, eager to share ideas and tell their stories. The foundation runs many projects, but one new program for girls is the Bavubuka Girls’ Passion Project, which provides leadership training to 20 women. It also runs a sports program for children in Kampala’s urban slums and in recovering post-conflict communities. Babaluku believes that group sports improves children’s health, enhances cooperation, improves their self-confidence, and gives them some much-needed leisure them. Football, boxing, and basketball are some games that are popular.
However, at the end of the day, Babaluku believes the heart of the youth movement is music. In December, he will host a hip-hop summit in Kampala that he hopes will give children a chance to show off their talent and enjoy their movement. “Hip-hop is the resurrection of the youthful voices of Uganda,” he said. “We have a slogan—what’s ours is for the people, ours is for the people. Akaffe kabatuzze.”
Rebecca Harshbarger is a journalist based in New York. You can follow her on twitter at www.twitter.com/rebeccaugust, and follow Ugandans Abroad at www.twitter.com/UgandansAbroad.
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Nice piece, Becky! I really want to listen to some of Babaluku’s music now.
Interesting! But I think blog-entries should be much shorter…
Took me time to learn all of the feedback, but i truly loved the article. It proved to be extremely useful to me and i’m distinct to every of the commenters here! it’s all the time best when you can not solely be informed, but additionally entertained! i’m inevitable you had enjoyable penning this article.
man keep the game, you inspire us,
Yup, yup. Seems like L might know a little something about this rap game.
Keep on doing what you doing it’s going to pay off in the long run.
good hip hop is atalent,i want to join yo group