Ali Campbell, the former leader of UB40, the English reggae and pop band, that won global acclamation in the 80s and 90s, is returning to Uganda for a concert.
This is after the 2008 concert the band staged in Kampala which unfortunately would be their very last as a group.
Next Media Services, the media group that runs NBS TV announced on Wednesday that UB40 featuring Ali Campbell will perform at Kololo Independence Grounds on December 21. It will mark the climax of NBS TV’s 15-year anniversary celebrations.
Talent Africa will produce the event.
Aly Alibhai, Talent Africa’s chief exec said the conversation began in 2020 during the Covid pandemic when he met with Campbell (UB40 frontman and founding member who left the original UB40 in 2008) in Nairobi. Campbell and Astro (the former member of UB40 who died in 2021) headlined the Real Labour of Love Tour show in Feb 2020 in Nairobi.
“I met with Ali Campbell and the late Astro and the team and planned from then to bring them. Then we were affected by Covid. And I still kept it going. And pretty much like a couple of years later, the time was right,” Alibhai said during the announcement.
He said it was at this point that he engaged NBS TV about having UB40 headline their 15th anniversary concert.
“It’s been 15 years since they (UB40) were here. NBS was born 15 years. All the numbers were working, everything was working, we said let’s do it. Uganda loves reggae, it has always loved reggae. This is gonna be the biggest Christmas festival ever experienced in Uganda,” he added.
NBS TV’s Joe Kigozi said UB40’s 2008 show in Kampala is the biggest concert in Uganda, and that them coming back to Uganda is a milestone, perhaps one that will never come again.
According to Kigozi, this is not just a concert. It is part of an even bigger social cause. “For every ticket you are going to buy, the ticket will plant 10 trees.”
“We want to save the environment using music,” Kigozi said.
Tickets for the concert will go on sale starting October 25 via tagticketing.com.
Formed in 1978 in the multi-racial working-class Birmingham suburb of Balsall Heath, UB40 became popular for their hit songs like Food for Thought, Red Red Wine, Can’t Help Falling in Love, I Got You Babe, Cherry Oh Baby and Reasons.
The band has had more than 50 singles in the UK Singles Chart, and has also achieved considerable international success. They have been nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album four times, and have sold more than 70 million records worldwide.
While UB40 returning to Uganda is exciting for those who have jammed to their long catalog of hits songs, their upcoming show will undoubtedly be a stark contrast to the concert they played at the Lugogo Cricket Oval fifteen years ago.
Since 2008, the band has undergone several reincarnations.
Shortly after their Kampala gig where they performed before 35,000 cheering fans, the band leader Ali Campbell left the group, prompted by financial difficulties and other management-related frustrations.
After Campbell’s exit, he formed his own ‘UB40’ and was joined by Michael Virtue ‘Mickey’ and later Astro (aka Terence Wilson) both members of the original band. This new group was known as ‘UB40 featuring Ali Campbell, Astro and Mickey’.
Together, they toured the world, releasing three new albums together reaching number 2 in the UK charts. Astro passed away after a very short illness in November 2021 after they’d finished their incredible fourth album – Unprecedented.
Mickey left the group in 2018, leaving Campbell as the only remaining member of the original band. Today, Campbell’s faction which largely consists of new recruits goes by the name ‘UB40 featuring Ali Campbell’.
The war of the rights to the name “UB40” which ensued after the 2008 split would eventually cost both sides (Campbell’s band and the original one where his brother Robin remained) £250,000 and lead to both Robin and Campbell being declared bankrupt.
The other UB40 (which maintains the name UB40) currently has four of the original members Robin Campbell, Earl Falconer, Jimmy Brown, and Norman Hassan who continue to play together to this day.
Duncan Campbell (another brother of Ali and Robin) who had replaced Ali retired in 2021 citing health reasons.
Both bands are legally allowed to play any of the songs they released before the 2008 split.
For Ali Campbell, returning to Kampala will certainly be an emotional experience. On one part, triggering memories of all the eight members of the original band playing on the same stage, but on the other hand, the very moment that climaxed the bitter sentiments he had with them, ending their three-decade journey.
“I had just done nine dates in Australia where I was following the band around, undoing the damage they were doing in interviews,” Ali told The Guardian in 2016 while looking back at the band’s journey.
“The [Kampala] gig wasn’t emotional, for me. I was just too angry,” he added.
Robin Campbell who stayed with the original UB40 is Ali Campbell’s brother.
Recounting their time in Kampala in 2008, Robin said; “Ali didn’t even talk to us. He had his own bus and hotel. He left the band after the show and hasn’t spoken to us since. We spent the next five years proving to everybody that we could still be UB40.”
The melancholy notwithstanding, the same reasons – the nostalgic music that has come to be attached to different memories for many – that drew thousands of Ugandans to fill the Lugogo Cricket Oval 15 years ago will likely cause the same effect this time.
Back then, the concert which was organized by MTN Uganda attracted Kampala’s affluent and influential, among them Gen David Tinyefuza, Gen Ivan Koreta, Gen Jim Muhwezi, former Kampala mayor Nasser Ntege Sebaggala, Sylvia Nagginda (Queen of Buganda) and Best Kemigisha (Toro Queen Mother) among others.
“People were lining up till the late hours of the night. Back then, it was unheard of that anyone would fill up the Lugogo Cricket Oval. We filled it to the rafters. It is still arguably the best show that has happened in Uganda,” Aggrey Kagonyera who was then manager for Events and Sponsorships at MTN Uganda recounts.
Kagonyera says putting the concert together was a big challenge as most of the equipment – stage, light and sound – had to be imported since Uganda had not grown its capacity in terms of events production.
