by Black Dog Bone
What does your name mean?
Baba means elderly father respected in various Africa not direct so not only in Uganda but also Kenya. In Tanzania baba means a figure of respect. Luku, I was doing a project and uniting Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania so when I got to Dar Es Salaam brother AY told me luku means electricity so that’s when I got the real meaning its father of energy
That’s amazing because everything sounds energy.
Yeah Babaluku means the father of energy
One thing you told me is that a lot of people come here to East Africa and most of the time they are under disservice, I asked myself where is Babaluku and Lyrical G, where are the real people?
It happens a lot, as so many people are taking a place in hip hop a lot of people want to shine but they haven’t been on the building process sometimes when you met someone in the city they won’t really tell you about Babaluku because they want that opportunity also the people who come in to interview at times I don’t blame them because they are misguided by who they are referred to as representatives of hip hop, so when you come to Uganda you should not only talk to hip hop in a western sense but look at indigenous hip hop, hip hop of the land and other hip hoppers who are preserving the culture, speaking to the people and encouraging, language usage. As you come in the hip hop community a lot of hip hoppers want to rap in English and as Babaluku the father of energy I want to leave that and rap in the indigenous language, so languages sound loud and clear so that their beautiful color and vibrancy, 58, almost 60 dialects that we have in Uganda participate in the hip hop culture
That is the main thing because Ugandans represent their languages in Lugaflow not, and the truth is that everything comes from the source. All the African people in America are rapping from the roots.
I want to say that the roots of Africa are from East Africa and hip hop started from here and that’s not a debate it’s much more exhibited through the cultural practices that we have here. We have so many rituals that involve rhyming and drums. So for it to be talked about as the blood it is respected because our brothers who went into Transatlantic slavery where is to extend those values, that would surface later in the brands. So the form of expression there that was going against resilience and go again the violence and minority backgrounds
It’s so amazing when you go to certain hoods like Oakland when you go to an African hood it looks like Africa, it’s so amazing.
Yeah and that’s the beauty you are able to experience the energy and not only the people but even your personal overview of things around you, you know you are able to take in that space and you are like back in Africa and one of the big things I let people know is that I grew up in the west but I let people know that I reconnect and carry and take every inch of the energy I have while I am here.
What do you mean you grew up in the west?
I migrated to Canada at 12 I was living in Ontario and later I moved to Vancouver to school and while I was in there I made my first move to come back to Uganda to represent Africa on a global scale.
How old were you when you got back?
I was 14 when my dad died so I came back in 2005 to establish the first ever hip hop foundation in Uganda.
What I heard from the people, I mean they love you and they respect you, so when you came back you started hip hop here?
Yeah I grew up on college radios both in Ontario and Vancouver and of course I was about culture verses pop culture so my intention of coming back was to use hip hop as a tool to transform and empower my generation to really advance ways of communicating or appreciating what they have all rooted in their origin to come to Uganda
A lot of people don’t know that you don’t have to be on TV, but this is the most beautiful thing and I love Uganda and I love the people?
The concept will misguide the people but if you have emulators ready to lead you will have people who feel inferior you know but if you have the indigenous content of expression you have a strong world you know young Africans who are proud of the culture right now I am mentoring a group called Bantu Clan. They are from different tribes in Uganda and they are into indigenous business and they are MCs and they use their platform to represent their villages and that’s what I want to grow. It took a lot to build that confidence but now we are having returns and I call it creating capital and young people stand up for what’s theirs.
Is it like a hip hop group or organization?
Bantu Clan is a hip hop movement represented by clan and it’s meant to unite all tribes.
Yeah that’s cool since it has always been the same tribes though they were separated.
And hence now we have this division that has separated us and conflict and if young people have a vision to support and unite I am going to support that and I want to encourage them and if they don’t have media I am using my own capacity to make videos for them and get them on TV and radios and to mentor them and help them brand and to look at their vision and how to communicate to people and how to stay in tune with your neighborhood and the people you stand for who later alone will become your fans and promote your work.
When I am here I am so excited to see that whatever you have done is spreading and people are excited not to rap in English. We don’t want that.
What’s crazy about that is that first the media thought we are not going anywhere that’s what was written and at that time they looked at us as clowns and they never believed in it. And so it’s a beautiful reward regardless of what they said we have stood our ground and now we have to be good and the thing I tell is that people thought you had to rap in English with a form of education so it meant if you said you were a rapper you had to have a family that pays for school fees to learn English but Lugaflow broke the margin. You could be a Rolex guy but still free style, you could sell tomatoes at the market but freestyle and so Lugaflow has given Uganda an everlasting expression that could be here and 20 years or 30 years from now it will have grown. Lugaflow is a brand of indigenous MCs. Luganda is most spoken but there is kid flow, Lugaflow and these guys are creative now.
You were saying something good like how you don’t rap in English and in America they want something new.
I think that was a misconception because it wasn’t until it we did to bring Lugaflow to a global platform, because it was until we did it global that the local community started to be like “ohh these guys are serious” and when they saw we were getting global and it didn’t only represent us but it represented the country I think there was a new conversation in people’s minds to start looking at this Lugaflow as something different which as we continue on because the best principle was community building. So we are actually being responsible MCs who are influencing not only the music industry but the society at large, and that puts us at the table and looked at as respectable guys growing and young people are getting opportunities and lives are changing all because of hip hop.
Another thing I notice is that when you do your own language your poetry comes out because that’s natural and you become very creative.
There is no better way to express yourself than your language that you understand. You can see today that I rap in my language I can rap in English too but every time I start rapping in my language the words get deep and the emotion and expression is deep and the English language doesn’t have all the vocabulary to translate what my mother tongue means. So how can I miss out on that original? That’s what I encourage local MCs to do with this beautiful art.
I am just hoping that the DJs will push it because they have a lot of power.
Here we have growing Djs. Here DJs don’t understand what a DJ should really be doing. We have commercial Djs, we don’t have rooted and influential DJs in the hip hop perspective and I want to introduce it so DJs understand what hip hop DJs do. Not commercial DJs almost 78% in Uganda are under 30 years and if we are able to be here and bring seminars and hip hop to share and build and we have to share and grow.
When I talked to people you were in a group called Bataaka?
Yeah it was original that it started the notion of indigenous rap here and really focused on using it socially not commercially. The reason you hear about Bataaka is we chose not to go commercial and remain underground and we influenced the whole scene. We waved the Ugandan flag high you know it was a group of Bantu young men solid in their belief that language was one thing you were going to use one day in this country and using hip hop as a foundation. Saba Saba, Lyrical G, Shillings, Furious B and it was an open crew and young people looked at it and wanted to join because what we were representing was new and we had an inferiority notion. But we took a trip to Tanzania and after going to Mwanza and seeing people rapping in Kiswahili we were like Uganda needs this we can’t keep rapping in English and that was our booster and we got invited to a hip hop summit in Tanzania in 1996 and that marked the genesis.
I love the Swahili rap I mean they rap in their own languages and it’s amazing.
I like listening to Swahili though am not a fluent Swahili speaker and I think its rich and the MCs are skilled and they have a deeper passion of representing. It has started growing in Uganda but it’s been slow. I train MCs but most of the MCs you find in Uganda have gone through my camp so am trying to introduce them to the best.
It’s amazing that you are doing it all this time and you look so young.
Of course Babaluku is the father of energy. My passion is to work with the young people, and not just to work with the young people but to change their lives and mindset and show them who they are. Each person I taught I had to create for them a platform, because when I came here none of this was here because I was taught to build. If I trained a poet I had to find a platform for them to recite them, studios for MCs but all that was work we had to break through. So when people invited Babaluku to perform I gave the audience to young artists I would go and introduce and give people.
It’s good to do this interview now I know there is someone to guide the youth in Uganda.
Yeah I mean you could go and re-interview people in Uganda. Usually I challenge people try ask people if I have impacted the generation beyond themselves amd what things have they put in place that other people have benefited from .
Because in Africa it’s all about community.
Yeah the ethics, we have a communal approach. I mean you win, we win and I want the youth to be connected to that principle and income from Canada and I come to Uganda and if I win in Uganda I win in Canada and if they win in Uganda I win in Canada and this our policy.
So did you put out cds when you were with Bataaka Underground?
I was part of writing our first Luganda single called “Ateoba,” its translated much more. It’s one piece that I originally wrote after being inspired in Tanzania but then it was finished by Momo MC, RIP and Lyrical G and Chagga and the Luganda thing was going places.
Did everyone go their own way?
Yeah people traveled yeah. I was here but I went back to Canada and others went to school but the spirit kept us united. I tell people sometimes I remember how it looked like.
Right now, the hip hop, it’s Lugaflow.
Yeah we shall always be the best and I am first me then I can see what you are telling me. But if I don’t know me, how can I be better knowing someone else? So at the end of the day you have to channel back into who you are. Who are you? Who are you being in Uganda and you say you don’t know any local dialect but you speak English? We call them lost sons and daughters and we encourage them to reconnect with their people and we are here to create the style. We want the culture to look sexy.
That’s the key. It’s like the Europeans, they have their plan but this Africa. If you want to be modern you have to do it from your roots.
Yeah everyone here wears ties and suits and barely do they wear their cloth just like when you go to Nigeria or Ghana the first thing you see is their cloth and fabric but here you see second hand clothes. We are proud of our style. We have the urban indigenous life style and its led by a fashion designer and we bring out fashionable sense, we tap into life not just rap and we translate it to fit hip hop and young people. I mean they ask if they can be farmers and do hip hop at the same time and I am like “yeah” so those are the dynamics and they are finding the inner voice.
There is always a negative aspect about Africa. I live in a ghetto but I feel I am home.
Often that’s what they do and they are trying to bring out a stereo type through Ebola. My friends say there is Ebola in Uganda and I tell them this is Uganda and not Africa we don’t have Ebola here but that’s what media does to trap people. The western culture gets destructed easily to really understand that Africa Is bigger than a country.
People scare people and you know they like “lets go to Spain” and if you say Africa they are like “hey maybe not this time.”
Yeah they are missing out on what is happening and we have a lot of fruit and we are the pearl of Africa. The garden of Eden is right here and its good.
I mean it’s really amazing the food is good.
Yeah the food is all organic we have fruit trees everywhere.
Tell me, what is this neighborhood called?
Is called Namasuba, 60 minutes away from Kampala. I moved here 6 years ago to continue hip hop and it’s been a good neighborhood for us. We have graffiti and its good.
Do you have an organization here?
Yeah this place is a product of Bavubuka Foundation. It means youth in Uganda. It was established to create space for young leaders through art and unifying communities and we believe it’s not about the masses. They lead their churches. So for the first 11 years we have a book full of testimonies about the work it has done. But as Bavubuka we grew into Bavubuka Dynasty and these were young entrepreneurs that grew up in the Bavubuka foundation and now they have companies and they are making money. It empowers young MCs and encourages them to invest in hip hop.
Because the whole of Africa, its healing and traditions kept people alive.
But they made people believe that somehow that’s evil and no one respects the art in Africa and politically arts are not respected but Bavubuka has used arts to bring up MCs in Uganda.
Everything has changed because of hip hop. The way people move and all music is influenced by hip hop yet it came from the ghettos. People don’t read books but they listen to hip hop.
Yeah the influence of hip hop on a global scale is huge. We always look it as especially me growing up in the west I have a deeper understanding of hip hop and I tell people the depth of hip hop beyond a microphone, beyond a trend and put in the life element that has made hip hop what it is. It gives you an opportunity to be you, to be a master of your own strategies.
You see an artist putting out music and the next minute he has a car.
Yeah Lugaflow has done it here they have cars and houses but they should stay humble.
As far as your music life are you still doing a lot of music?
I am doing experimental music and I call it experimental because I bring musicians together and they try out something new. And I bring professional musicians to work with upcoming artists but I have not been In studio. I have a whole bunch of songs I have been recording the Ritual Gratitude album.
Do you see that musically they are using more of the African languages?
Yeah I think it has started to come out. Look at the producers. If they can produce local music and indigenous MCs that can really produce the music and beats and have that unique sound and if you give me a bit from New York I will put an African touch on it and make it good.
Even the commercial music like Radio and Weasel I think they are great and they are melodic.
They have contributed to the industry it encourages young people to keep dreaming and we are working to dream if you ever ran into Radio and Weasel they are my fans and they tell me to share. They want me to join the industry but I tell them I love to share with the youth and that’s where my heart is and growing up in North America was not easy but hip hop really got me going and I need to identify my uniqueness. I only found out that I am black when I moved to America.
When you are here you don’t see it but when you are outside is when you see it. Do you see a big change happening here from the time you left?
Yes definitely in Uganda and Africa looking at the west and south we are the new generation Africa. To reclaim our culture hip hop is the original whether you are a dancer, poet or rapper I believe as the message continues to spread, that’s why you are here I guess. While a Ugandan journalist takes long to come here to interview, someone is coming from California to interview us that is already powerful. I can feel there was a change and we are always putting useless interviews. We only welcome a truthful person. We don’t want surface we want raw captions who say as a hip hop artists I have four words make history and make things change and young people have the power and they are principles what we do here is to shift minds into a work place.
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