by Black Dog Bone
How did you get your name Spider?
My high school Iganga Progressive, I was terrible in school sneaking out and being loud so one day the teacher told me, “You’re hard to deal with, so if you were an insect you would be a spider.” But I never liked insects that much so I changed the spelling of my name to Spyder MC. Though I call myself Wemusi, just a local way of saying MC and guys call me Wemusi.
Is this were you grew up?
Yeah I grew up here in the hood though the place has changed a lot. It had trees and youths used to hangout here chewing leaves and doing gymnastics and I was around 9 years old, I used to wake and take tea and then escape from home to go out and start carry peoples cabbage to pits and after filling the pits KCCA would come and take it so we used to sneak because it was a very shabby job but we earned money and then go to Lake Victoria and swim, it’s actually nearby. This hood is my place, we are not close to Entebbe but Lake Victoria is round it’s in other districts like Mbarara, Mukono, Masaka and Jinja.
What is this town called?
Its called Makindye, in fact it’s found in Kampala the capital city, Makindye East Constituency in Kibuuli, the zone is called Lubuuga and zones here are divided.
When you were growing up were there other rappers too?
When I was growing up they were few. They had no vision they were imitating what they saw on TV but there is a rapper that introduced me to bonfire but he quit the game he is called Zack, whoever used to come at the Bonfire belonged to it we had a stage every Wednesday at national theater. We used to organize chairs and people would come. We never went community to community because people thought the national theater was more organized and everything at the national theater groomed me. It’s a place where everyone had a chance. I remember some guys came from Dutch to Uganda to see the Bonfire but the project was stolen and they were organized and registered. They were a project but this was not about company it was about the people doing the real work in Uganda we have a problem. Some projects have a business mentality, that’s why last week you didn’t see me. The MC that won was my student so I had to be there. My mentor is Babaluku. Babaluku is the father of hip hop. He used too have a house in Makindye and most youth stayed there not like an orphanage but by then I used to work with Bonfire but they were called Bavubuka so he taught them everything but the fact he goes out and back but people told the youth that Baba takes their pictures and sells them which was not right but Baba and the kids were good he was in the Diaspora and they were so good I used to admire to join them though I was Bonfire so some bros started sneaking and some white lady took Bunny O and seduced Nelly to leave. They were divided I guess they left with the guilty and when Baba showed up at the concert he was told to pay yet he nurtured these kids and gave them everything. They not MCs and don’t support MCs they only come when they want to bring new people to the cipher. Baba refused to pay because it was a sign of disrespect. Scholars come from abroad but they don’t want to see people like Spyder, they wanna see the big context of MCs but scholars are held everywhere, national theater has copy cat MCs they don’t have hip hop culture. Baba is good at talking at people so that’s why they were scaring him and they are his enemy.
Do you like Babaluku and respecting people like you?
Yeah and what hurts me most is that when he tells you about his work, no project sponsors started to work with him last year but before that we were friends. He normally stays in Uganda for four months, remember at the end of the week I used to come as a showcase MC like intervals of the battle but the problem is that people have less understanding of hip hop, though they were in the lime light of hip hop and their ego used to tell them that they are the best at everything but us we are just gifted to do this. Me, I was not taught by everyone and now we call ourselves Tandika Essawa, meaning start the time. So we work with him. When I met him he had real music and I listen to music and their music has changed us the music, pattern and fashion and it changed us and got to a level of not seeing music as music but seeing music as something that’s divine. Sean says its heaven sent. I wanted to invite you to the show but I didn’t think you were here, but battles we have so many battles here, its not fair how people hike the price to 10000. How can you have a cipher and one chooses who give the mic? I had a brother who said we need everything to be commercial like mainstream artists money comes first but for underground artists money follows the work but he never understood. I told him if I wanted to organize battles I would have done that four years back, but we trained MCs first not having walking around and calling anyone but we are coming up with Nawe Osoboola battles and funders will find us somewhere and we meet genuine people like you.
I have interviewed like 30 Lugaflow artists so they will know the truth.
Yeah actually the brothers who are doing English I pity them not because I don’t respect English they actually had a group called Ugaflow but they were doing English and they kept on doing mistakes and they keep thinking that they are the best so that has broken down this generation so I decided to drop them. So I went back underground it was about who went abroad or Berlin so I wanted a background so I got a cipher like Namuwongo but if a brother leaves they have to leave a replacement so hip hop has a foundation.
Whats going on right now? Uganda hip hop is going to be big and the radio will support you.
Yeah and the other thing people think you want to stay in good places. When the queen is coming they renovate for a short while then don’t do it for the nationals and that’s the problem in Africa and when you do a unique thing they pull you down and people kept on asking about the name, they wanted me to call it a project and when I asked my brothers they told me that projects come from hoods like prisons and I don’t want to call myself a project. I don’t want to be controlled I want to be creativity, you cant create without having a free mind.
You told me you went to school and cut school, to me it was a good thing.
Luganda is vernacular and its not allowed in school and after primary school they teach you that your roots is a devilish way which is not right and the white colinizer mentality. When I left my primary I thought everything is Satanic and it’s the mental slavery, I love Africa I studied everything about Africa like the Zenj Empire. Everything is about Africa.
You are getting to understand they make you look small and you think white men are good.
That’s not love, I see we have a drum band and I perform and I was rapping with drums, hows your program Saturday night. So you can come and shoot us a little and we can be seen elsewhere. And that’s specifically hip hop in Uganda
You told me that hip hop came from Africa.
Yeah its just that when we started rapping we just wanted to be good but when I grew up I started becoming spiritual I remember a song in my local language and it’s actually hip hop and they used to teach people to count before mordern times and the chanting was here and even I as the hip hop it originates from town so it’s not surprising that everything came from the east because even our dancing, drums and singing everything came from here and everything here is sound. The more we try to run away from the roots it loses sense just like Mugabe was chasing away people from the land he said that the land belongs to the sons of the, how can you be in England and have 90 acres of land in Zimbabwe and I think he is a bright man and that’s why he has lived for more than 91 years. In Africa we don’t mean a world like the anti gay bill was passed and in to time it was canceled because of the aid. The prime minister of Buganda brought a project called Ettoffali like add a brick and a brick and bulid a house. This proved that Ugandans have money with them and they actually can fund for themselves and willing to give but the cause has to be rooted in here and he is second to the king and people have divine respect and other tribes that are not baganda, the government is not helping the people. We don’t need democracy its already dividing the people, its not helping. When someone says democracy that’s already division. The problem with Africa is that we are naturally meant to rule ourselves. Africans are greedy that’s why each tribe had asking and we had to grow food and no one would fight for power but everything was good but when you tell someone they will ask you if you don’t want to rule and do you think people in the army don’t want to rule? Rulers don’t just come. Democracy is artificial, votes are manipulated. I hope something can be done and hip hop has given me an understanding I never had I don’t have a lot of money but I live on hip hop and sleep for free and my mind is free too. And when you go slums you see people looking up to and these are fresh battles we need judges. I told the brothers and I told them that everything we have I learned this from workshop they said that the word capital comes from capitus a Greek word meaning the brain so I realized I have capital too since I got my brain. So we did ciphers for a year and guess what? One day I had done the demos that brought the One Mic Show on TV but when Syno went on the show I asked them for a slot as a brother who brought this on TV, a little visibility they said they couldn’t they complained a lot and they ended up giving the show to some other guy that was not hip hop and they lost the show. But I had a chance to feature because I had the ciphers but at the end of the day I was from Luzira and I received a call. I was asked to feature on the one mic show and we wanted ciphers and NTV came and after the news beat thing they called me again.
To me its very energizing to speak to people like you who are young. You guys are the true sons of Africa. All good rappers in America like Ice Cube are African, they look like you.
Yeah explains the culture and I used to be like my brothers who are here were trying to be there are losing a truck at the end of the end of the day they are looking for your authentic you not the your emulated characters. So hanging on with bar look is also a pleasure coz he won’t give you money or anything. The fact that he comes from abroad most of people think he has money to give them and that’s a very bad mentality here but when I met him it was like relaxing because he had something to say and I had something to say coz he is giving you a lot like the cares one would do and that’s why the reason I did not come to the end of the way but not because I did not want to come because the kids of my age can disrespect the one I respect so I feel bad. So I was like let me just go out there and hang out and do my thing and we have our battles and I said you should also come to the Nawe Osobola battles you guys put a boundary when you had your battles. He was supposed to come to Nawe Osobola to come and recruit the MCs and take at the end of the week and I told him you guys have boot comes try and see whether it can be in your battles you know these are the MCs we make with no dime. You guys are funded, you guys are given dime, in single if we misuse this yet we disrespect this now this year they were thinking this work could have been but the fact that Spyder could use his foot to anywhere he is walking with two hours of non stop walk and think this year we are going to go a little bit of business, a little bit of needing some money now so this year we are working on having some community shows. But am doing only free shows to create the way and fit in the people and next year we can have one free show and three for paying. We want to build an industry that buys our items not an industry that only celebrates.
Are you putting out mix CDs or tapes?
The fact that I have not been financially stable all these years, I had one track I did with Jerom from Baboon Forest but then we had not joined Baboon we were still, there is a collabo I did with six MCs, then another song its not hip hop I did it with a brother called Bon MC it’s called “Money is a Bitch,” it has a sound track of ghetto and people like it and I was rapping in English, then I have a small video though its not a good one, but now am working on an album and around March or April am sure it will be done. We had a chance to work with some Kenyan producer he gave us the beats he was back at the source. So he gave us the beats and we built up because we wanted to do something different, something really authentic in Uganda. But California people, Uganda stride up Africa.
Did he come here to see what was going on?
Yeah but he is Califonia, you need to come down here and give us the meaning of hip hop down there so we could give ours and in the end do some relation so we may get some beat of understanding of hip hop because in my own scene hip hop is not hip hop, it’s something some one needs to understand. If you are true to it it’s one love unity and fun.
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