Working with Composer-Performers
Before moving to the United States for my graduate studies in 2004, I studied and performed Kiganda music with most of the composer-performers featured in this book, who also became principal participants in my research about the royal court music genre. Working closely with these artists provided me with multiple opportunities to master a variety of Kiganda musical instruments and their associated court song repertoire. In the early 2000s, I apprenticed and performed (as a singer and drummer) with Albert Muwanga Ssempeke (ca. 1930–2006) and Ludoviiko Sserwanga (ca. 1932–2013) and their performing group, Siblings in Love (Abooluganda Kwagalana) at many events in Kampala. The group also featured Albert Ssempeke Bisaso (b. 1979), Ssempeke’s son, with whom I performed in another ensemble in the early 2000s. Ssempeke and Sserwanga were my primary Kiganda court music teachers, and I owe most of my knowledge about the subgenre to them.
These and related events partly inspired me to research Kiganda court music during my undergraduate studies at Makerere University and later during my graduate studies at Florida State University. Similarly, observing performances of court songs in ethnic and national contexts allowed me to appreciate their relevance to political life in Uganda. In the mid-2000s I attended events at which Ssaalongo Kiwanuka Matovu Deziderio (1924–2015) and his Badongo Dancers group performed some of the songs discussed in this book. I would later hire him and the group to perform at my wedding reception in 2006. Performing court music and attending events at which it was being performed offered me rare insights into the varied political and contextual meanings of Kiganda court songs. In other words, these extended engagements prompted me to make important connections between the lyrical content of the songs and the power relations within Uganda. The familiarity I gained with the songs’ political themes informed how I conducted research with the selected group of non-performers who served as the interpreters in this project.
I recorded some of the songs analyzed in parts 2–6 in 2003 and 2004 as part of my research on the continuity and change of the Kiganda royal bow harp (
ennanga).
1Kafumbe 2004. The study consulted solo performances by Ssempeke, Bisaso, and Ssaalongo Ssennoga Majwala (b. 1953). In 2005 and 2006 I recorded additional songs during the research I carried out for a project that focused on the historical role of royal court musicians during the reign of King Sir Edward Muteesa II (r. 1939–1966). Building on my previous research on Kiganda royal court music, the project consulted solo performances of songs by Ssempeke, Sserwanga, Deziderio, Bisaso, Majwala, Ssaalongo Paulo Kabwama (1923–2020), and Mukasa Kafeero (b. 1971).
2Kafumbe 2006.