By Nimusiima
It all started as a joke. Seriously, Gravity Omutujju started as a joke, if you ask me. I saw him perform in one of the nightclubs and he had quite a following. It seemed he was fond of performing there. He lugged one song in his pockets: Paul Kafeero’s (RIP) Walumbe Zaaya rendition. Gravity was funny, witty and even though the song is largely sad and emotion-wrenching, he approached it on its lighter side and did justice to it.
However, even though he has been on a brick road of success, achieving all that, making a name out of scratch, Gravity has never hit me hard as a rapper. Okay, he is rich with his lyrics. Of course he is. Have you listened to him? Please do. But look, he has no particular genre he belongs to, which is fine, really, but that to me takes away the credit.
He raps in the same style. Have you realized? Pick his songs and listen. Albeit, he is extremely talented. Listen to him in Broken English. Where does he get his words? It is insanely witty to the extreme that your English will evaporate. I love his choice of words here. And the song itself, because, come on, Ugandans speak broken English. Even Gravity himself. I am even tempted to think it was supposed to be an English song, you know, like the way Navio raps, but Gravity banged the proverbial buffalos and thus decided to give it a name.
Broken English is a good song if you have an ear for lyrics and if you are an avid follower of Gravity. But it is an average song if you are an aficionado of Hip Hop. Gravity does mockery to the genre. He can rap, but he can’t choose the right beats for Hip Hop and it is suicidal. He thus decides to chip in with dancehall beats and raps on them, which is harmless. But it becomes harmful if he labels himself a Hip Hop rapper, because, unapologetically, that’s not Hip Hop. Well, having said that, it doesn’t take away the fact that Broken English is a nice concept, creative and funny. Something Gravity would do. Something people who speak Broken English (like Gravity himself) would resonate with.
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