UK fan’s boost for Ugandan singer with Kenyan roots

Ugandan singer Harriet Taakah has been making inroads into Kenya, especially in the western part of the country.

Taakah is now poised to grow her presence beyond East Africa, thanks to enquiries from Europe about her music. A benevolent fan from Britain has come up with sponsorship to develop and host her website. Her audio songs and videos are now available on her website, www.takah.com.

“I am really happy about this recognition and help from tens of thousands of kilometres away from home. It is bearing fruit. My fans and others can now access the material online, read about me and enjoy to my music. It is fantastic.”

Her first endeavour in the past two years has been to popularise her music in Kenya, which was been relatively easy because she sings in Samia, the sub-dialect of the Luhya language that straddles the Kenya-Uganda border. The sizeable Samia community of Kenya is her natural catchment, but her real target is a youthful patronage that appreciates music done in the rhumba and zouk style.

He music has now spread from Busia to Nairobi, where she has held two concerts this year.

Despite having a kept a low profile in the past few months, Taakah, who is based in Uganda’s second largest city, Jinja, is happy that things are looking up for her. The singer, who has relatives across the border in Samia, Busia County, says the British interest in her music came after she was featured in the Saturday Nation as a then little-known singer.

Earlier this year, she performed at a wedding in Nairobi. She featured in a radio interview and interacted with fans in the call-in programme.

“I got the opportunity to interact with many of my Kenyan fans during the radio interview,” she said.

She has also performed this year at Club Meladen in Upper Hill, Nairobi, during a Samia Cultural Night, courtesy of the Samia Youth Alliance.

In Jinja, she performs from Thursday to Saturday at the Nile Viewers Club backed by a session band.

Last year, she released two new singles, Asangasa (he/she makes people happy) and Eryuba Lyange (my sunshine), recorded at the CXB Studios in Busia, Uganda. She is now working on a new single, Ebyange (mine), to be released later in the year. “In the new song, I urge people to recognise others when alive and not wait until one is gone to glorify one,” she said.

While in Kenya, she met Busia-born rumba singer Princess Eva Namulanda, who manages her own group, the Keco Afro Sounds Band.

“We shared a lot together and am looking forward to doing more with her,” she said.

Like Eve, Harriet is now putting together a fusion band, which she is looking forward to launching in August.