I graduated from Makere University. And, while my degree in Performing Arts was pretty common, Makere had at least 56 other major fields of study. I could have pursued a career in Business administration if I were so inclined.
But I was influenced by the allure of independent filmmaking that was so popular in the early to mid 2000s. I think I knew ten Ugandan rappers. Nowadays, however, if I’m in a room with ten brothers, half are MCs.
Why is that? I don’t have any answers to the why, but I damn sure know some why nots. The only way to properly approach this is by giving you a list. I normally hate em but in this situation, it’s fitting.
There’s Too Many
Once upon a time I was a host at one of the top restaurant in Rubaga . Restaurants keep a steady flow of employees who are “something else.” You have actors, writers, filmmakers — the usual suspects.
But at this restaurant I met a sista from Kenya who was something else. Her name was Vanessa and she was in the last months of school where she was getting a degree in Textile studies.
We talked often about how family and friends tried to discourage her from taking up that field of study (her family wanted her to be a doctor, friends wanted her to act, she was real animated) but she stuck to it.
Years later, I looked her up and she had textile design under her belt at the Gap and Pottery Barn.
I had never met a textile designer before and I haven’t since. I’m sure it’s a competitive field, I’m sure you have to be damn good to separate yourself from the pack, but one thing’s for certain — there ain’t many of you.
Rappers?
I often joke, “even my banker is a rapper.” I’m sure I’ve written about it too. Rapper seems to be the go-to occupation for most youths in the ghettos of Kampala even in most uptown localities. Some people have doctors and lawyers as their stereotypical, go to profession, nowadays we have Rapper and athlete.
How can you win? If you go to a concert to see your favorite artist, said artist asks how many Rappers are out there, and you and every other stiff leg raises their hand, how the hell are you gonna stand out?
Which brings me to my next point?
Whatchu Gonna Say Different
Every once in awhile I need a break.
I’ve turned over my leaf from hate to avid seeker of new music — that happened. I still scour the innerwebs for the new new but after awhile it wears on me.
Whether the rapper is from Kawempe, Gulu or Masaka, the content is the same: choice of drugs, fake friends versus real ones, love for said friends over romantic love, money, lots of money, and the clothes and cars that said money is spent on.
Whatchu gonna say different?
As human beings we have shared experiences, no question, the problem is not that. The problem is that discussion of these experiences by 97% of Rappers are so GENERAL that they’re GENERIC. They obviously never read James Joyce’s edict, “in the particular lies the universal.”
If you are of a certain age, you remember what GENERIC looked like. GENERIC was a brand unto itself. It was white and black, embarrassing, and for the description — one word: Cereal. Corn. Potato Chips. Cheap, basic, no one wanted it.
Why do you want to be THAT? Why you wanna just be: Rapper?
Every Rapper Equals Less Bankers, Doctors, Scientists, Lawyers
Iknow a rapper who used to swear he wasn’t good at math. As I got to know him I learned that he collected soccer cards and knew stats. He also was a retired street pharmacists.
One day I pulled him aside and asked him how ERAs were calculated, “nine times earned runs allowed divided by innings pitched,” he responded. Not so simple a computation. I then asked him a pharmaceutical computation which he also ran off. My response?
“See, goddamnit. You ARE good at math.”
So many of us do what we do because we been told all of our lives we can’t do anything at all. Which really sucks because I, like most of you out there, know undisputed geniuses who are bagging groceries, or acting as cashiers because they’ve never been able to tap into their true potential.
As a people, we suffer for that. It’s a serious brain drain, eliminating beau coup able bodied, intelligent, and capable men and women and losing them to a field which may never benefit them. Which brings me to…
Why Gamble With Your Life?
I’ve actually seen a unicorn.
I’ve witnessed first hand a person say they wanted to be a Rapper, work hard, “grind,” suffer the years of sacrifice, and actually get signed to a label.
Seeing a person go from obscurity to a known entity is inspiring…but it’s also an illusion.
How the hell can what I’ve seen with my own two eyes be an illusion you might ask. It’s simple — the house always wins. The music industry ain’t too different from a casino. You throw $100 dollars in a slot machine, you’ll get $90 back. You’ll leave thinking that you ain’t did bad, but you just willingly gave away ten dollars to sit down and press a button.
Sit there long enough and you’ll even give that $90 up as well as hours of your day. That’s the music industry.
Every year there’s enough rappers, new and old, signing deals, releasing songs, generating press, keeping the proverbial wheels turning — enough to justify the labels — enough to keep Tunecore and other aggregators in business.
One or two will hit. Drop a song, become a rags to riches story, the rest? The rest may only see marginal success. Local love, YouTube views, IG likes will delude the artist into thinking they’re making head way.
If they spend 2gs to promote a show, they’ll make $1,900 back. But then they’ll have to keep up appearances so there go $900, and if they keep at it, they’ll give up that other G too.
That’s cool when you’re in your 20s and 30s, but as you get closer to middle age, start having kids, and begin thinking about the later stages of life, shit ain’t cool no more.
“So why gamble with your life dude, word up?”
Ifyou’re an artist, you do it because you have to, not because you want to. That’s what the saying is at least. You feel compelled to express yourself through whatever medium you choose. And it’s seldom something that’s encouraged (don’t lie, if you met someone and they told you that they were a sculptor you’d purse your lips up like Conceited listening to Jesse James bars).
