ABSTRACT
“I was born, born in Africa, sing my song music Africana”, sang the late great Philly Lutaaya on his Afro-reggae hit single “Born in Africa” released in the late 1980s. The song (together with its accompanying album, recorded at B10 B10 studios and released on Amigo records in Stockholm, Sweden) is still a favourite in Uganda over 15 years later. Another of Lutaaya’s songs, the poignant “Alone and Frightened” has become the anthem of the anti-AIDS effort in Uganda. The lines “Today it’s me/Tomorrow someone else/It’s you and me/We’ve got to stand up and fight” offer hope to stigmatized patients and sufferers across the country. According to Charlie King, a popular Ugandan musician based in Sweden: “Dr. Alban Nwapa, the Nigerian-Swedish musician who made his musical mark with Denniz Pop a few years later, said Lutaaya was one of the greatest African musicians of the 1980s.” 1 Unfortunately, he never achieved the world fame he deserved: his life and promising international career were cut short by his death in December 1989.
