Like the saying goes, the new broom sweeps better but the old one knows all the corners, the music legend; Dan Kazibwe known by his stage name Ragga Dee aligned himself to this with rarities a few would imagine transpired in his golden era.
How worth was or even is a local artiste’s album in Uganda prior its promotion? The question is rhetoric but one would guess the figure to be lower than a hundred million Ugandan shillings, an amount that the “Mbawe” hit maker alleges to have earned from his premature album of the same name back in the early 2000’s.
He attributes the high demand for the then unfinished work to his prior success of tracks like “Ndigida” which denied promoters second thoughts. The more surprising fact is that the multi-million worth album had a touch from a starlet of the time by the name of Joseph Mayanja aka Jose Chameleon who co-produced the work of art.
Ragga Dee’s career was a glittering one with an unimaginable fact that he was his own manager especially for his shows and bookings even for upcountry events.
He cites the need to earn from your own talent other than a manager earning more from you. This makes more sense whilst relating to the endless artiste-manager wars that headline the local music industry.
The singer further reminded us how old is gold lamenting that history is more important than geography, a metaphor that translates to the need to understand more what existed before than what exists now since the latter cannot be proper without the former.
Just between me and you, when Ragga Dee was in pursuit for a collabo in Tanzania with A.Y, Diamond Platinumz was part of the small boys sticking around the Bongo Flavour star. Perhaps we should learn from the little secret than stun about it.
Sources understand that Ragga Dee who was last in studio a decade or so ago, is currently a top administrator at the National Cultural Forum; a body that overlooks all the performing arts and is planning to establish a one stop centre for all the performing arts ranging from drama, dance to music and many more like V.J’s.
He’s been assumed to be the better beneficiary of the government relief than the forum over some unexplained finances. Regardless, Mr. Kazibwe delivered a stellar communique regarding the successfulness of the entertainment industry which requires unity and mobilization instead of seeking cheap popularity with little earnings.
