By Bash Mutumba
When he chose to focus on dance music, Eddy Kenzo wasn’t given much encouragement by the Ugandan audience. His efforts were however undeterred, since he had noticed a trend of virality among his music that leaned towards that style. Even though his breakthrough was “Yannimba”, a mainstream Afrobeat ballad, his first mega hit was Stamina, a dance song. Sitya Loss, another dance song etched his name on the international scene, regardless of initial doubts by local critics and media.
At over 538,000 subscribers on YouTube, Eddy is the most sought after Ugandan artiste on the platform, and you would be shocked to find that many of the most viewed videos on his channel are not the official ones, but those of comedians dancing to his songs. This is something many look down on, but it is the reason why he was contacted by Chris Brown, to feature in the American artiste’s “Back To Love” music video.
One unique thing about his latest release “Signal” is the fact that it is not heavily riddled with beats like the likes of Sitya Loss, Wankulira or Ogwo. Kenzo goes ever so calm on it, begging his lover to stay with him. Justin Campos, with his minimalist video color grading technique, did justice to the song, and the cinematic concept of a country mansion with high renaissance portraits and models clad in posh dresses, softly swaying to Eddy’s Signal, is utterly therapeutic.
Musuuza, posing as a mason in the indoor scenes, shocks the viewer when he pulls an early 2000’s RnB stunt of singing in the rain on the second verse. Generally, it is such a beautiful song, with a beautiful video, and how I wish we could appreciate our biggest musical export in recent times, a little bit more.
Watch video below.