Bebe Cool curtain raising, literally the first musician to perform on the main stage, should have been the first signal that Eddy Kenzo festival was not going to be your ordinary concert.
But the plausible logic could be, if you have as much influence as Kenzo has had in the music industry in just 14 years, it becomes easier even for egos to compromise.
That was just one of the many firsts on Saturday night at Kololo Independence Grounds.
Many artistes have come before Kenzo. Yet not one of them has been as ambitious. None has won a BET Award, none has toured as much let alone be so intentional in widening their musical footprint beyond East Africa. Not only did the fest encapsulate Kenzo’s far-reaching influence, it made vivid the numerous faces the singer represents.
International appeal
No Ugandan musician has staged a concert that has featured as many foreign acts as there were at Kenzo’s show. At least 10 artistes including Harmonize (Tanzania), Chasebell (U.S.), Mampi (Zambia), Matt B (U.S.), Kiflex (Cameroon) Bahati (Kenya), Bruce Melodie (Rwanda), Tribe Mark (U.S.) and John Frog (South Sudan) performed.
With all these (except Mampi), Kenzo has had collabs.
With Matt B, Kenzo performed Gimme Love which last month featured on the Billboard U.S. Afrobeats charts debuting in the Top 50.
The Nsimbudde singer also later revealed how American pop singer and song producer, Chasebell, is producing three songs off his next album.
It is quite incredible how wide Kenzo has spread his wings since his 2010 song Sitya Loss which shot him to the global stage and subsequently won him a BET Award.
These aggressive strides explain why in 2018 alone, Kenzo won four international awards among them Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards (Favorite African Star), International Reggae and World Music Awards (Best African Entertainer) and Hollywood African Prestigious Awards (Best African International Artist).
From numerous collaborations, to performing at several international festivals, to bagging awards, Kenzo has been anything but complacent in pushing the Ugandan sound beyond the borders.
Even the Prime Minister of Uganda, Robinah Nabbanja who was present at the festival acknowledged this.
“I thank you for raising our flag high across the world. Seeing all these foreign artistes here symbolizes what you have done to represent Uganda internationally,” the PM told the singer.
Influence
The Kenzo festival scored highly in many aspects but it also cemented the fact that he commands a great deal of influence both in the creative industry and beyond.
For the industry brass like Bebe Cool and Jose Chameleone to feature among the long list of performers is no mean endorsement. It went to show how much they acknowledge what Kenzo has been able to achieve in a career shorter than theirs.
Bebe Cool would lash out at the influx of Nigerian music, in a way admitting the remarkable support extended to Kenzo is proof the local industry still thrives.
The list of local artistes that made the roster was too long and diverse. In itself, representative of the unifying factor that Kenzo is. Even when he has been controversial, at times sucked into political bickery, all sides showed him solidarity.
His influence drew in the government too – the Prime Minister and another Minister were present. Considering Kenzo has among other things served as the tourism ambassador for Uganda, this would be no surprise.
The PM recounted how she enlisted Kenzo in three of her previous political campaigns to help her canvas votes in Kakumiro district, since the singer was a big influencer to the youths.
One of the fest’s most hyper moments was the sheer cheer that engulfed the crowd as Kenzo together with Ronie Stamina performed the popular Stamina, a song that became a campaign anthem for most politicians during the 2011 elections.
Symbol of hope
As much as singers Fik Fameica, Bahati and Harmonize share the commonality of having collaborated with Kenzo musically, that’s not their only common denominator. Harmonize explained during his performance that “I’m here because like Kenzo, I came from the ghetto”. He went as far as assuring the crowd everything is possible if they believe it.
Despite his stardom, Kenzo, 32, has never shied from his past – orphaned at age 5 and living on the streets because he was homeless.
Paying homage to Defence Minister, Vincent Ssempijja, Kenzo confessed; “I was a homeless kid. I used to sleep in the football pitch. I stayed at his (Ssempijja) home for two months. He owned a football team called Lukaya F.C and that’s where I started out as a player”.
The opener for Kenzo’s performance was monumental. A surreal traditional performance by a collection of children holding torches. Everyone in the audience must have drawn individual interpretations of it.
But one thing stood out throughout the festival – the prominence given to kids including the famous Ghetto Kids whose extraordinary performance played a huge role in Sitya Loss video’s virality that won Kenzo a BET Award.
It seemed Kenzo sought to showcase the idea that these children mirror his past. At the same time, he himself representing the endless possibilities.
With this parade of face-painted children, Kenzo performed Neyanzinza his 2014 song in which he thanks God and attributes his story to God’s grace.
Audacious moves
There were many things at the festival that made it clear Kenzo isn’t willing to settle for the bare minimum. On the onset, the idea of branding his event as a festival (initially conceived as a three-day event), was a big departure from a comfort zone that several Ugandan artistes, including those that taunt their legendary status, are stuck in.
In another unconventional move, Kenzo opted to market his festival through a country tour as opposed to doing this as a final leg. Then he dared to stage the fest at Kololo, a leafy suburb that majority of his low-class audience would deem inaccessible.
For many artistes, concerts are approached with commercial interests as an overriding factor. One would argue Kenzo, noticing he’s now playing in certain leagues, realized a festival would brand him a certain way and he was ready to stake all his cards.
As the saying goes, “Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.”
Hopefully, some day, the winners will pay homage to him for trailblazing a new era of celebrating Ugandan music.
It’s often tempting to perceive daring as grand ideas. But there were the little unique things that stood out and got you in awe. For example, in celebration of music, why has something as peculiar as sky lanterns never been thought of? It had to be Kenzo.
