Singer Jose Chameleone has been gifted a new Range Rover Autobiography by President Yoweri Museveni’s brother, Shadrack Nzeire, popularly known as Toyota.
The music star received the brand new vehicle over the weekend. A source close to the ‘Kiggwa Leero’ singer confirmed to Plugged the car was donated by ‘Toyota’.
In a video shared on social media, on receiving the vehicle, Chameleone is heard confessing how he’s still affiliated to the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party.
“The greatest witness can be Mr. Toyota. My friend, I’m still your family. I’m still NRM, I’m not anywhere. If you doubt that, put up your cameras and record that on me,” Chameleone told a small group including Toyota himself.
He added that his break away from the NRM had been due to personal issues.
“I was a prodigal, for a situation. I had my issues”.
In last year’s general elections, Chameleone ran for political office – Mayor of Kampala city – but on an independent ticket. At the same time, he was a mobilizer for Democratic Party and had been identifying as a member of Bobi Wine’s political party, National Unity Platform (NUP) which later denied him (Chameleone) the ticket.
For the longest time, popular perception had been that Chameleone is NRM.
In the 2016 presidential elections, the singer along with other artistes recorded ‘Tubonga Nawe’ the official campaign song for President Museveni. In the song, Chameleone and his colleagues expressed support for Museveni.
While defending himself on the controversy surrounding his political affiliation, he in 2019 said he was only associated with NRM as a service provider (singer).
“I have never been in NRM. I would like to make it clear to everybody that I am a service provider and I have been a musician for all these years looking for money,” he said in 2019 during a DP event.
Yet again, Chameleone will leave many pondering on where really his allegiance falls. Others will not lose sleep over it because a chameleon is a chameleon.
Many years ago, while a boy aged 15, his mother cautioned him while asserting that music wasn’t a wrong choice but the timing was.
“You need to do things adjacent to your age. You can’t be living by yourself at fifteen; that is a different shade of you. You need to adjust accordingly, like a chameleon does,” Chameleone said in a previous interview, quoting his mother’s advice.
That would be the birth of his stage name ‘Chameleone’.
His mother asked him to adopt the behaviors of chameleon. It is patient but sure about its aim.
To judge Jose Chameleone for his constant swing towards different political identities is to assume you understand the singer’s aims at that particular moment.
