Juliana Kanyomozi stormed back onto the music scene last week with some crisp visuals for her new song I’m Still Here. The Internet went into a frenzy for a few hours until some news emerged that she had apparently jerked American pop star Jennifer Lopez’s video Ain’t Your Mama. Not the kind of comeback her fans and critics were expecting, at least not one marred by controversy and plagiarism claims. And oh my word, the two videos were very similar. The images that went viral on social media had Juliana scrubbing a floor, something J-Lo also did in her video. Can you imagine that we are even copying these Bazungu on things like how to scrub floors? Really? Jesus please take the wheel. The background setting was similar to J-Lo’s. Basically, it looked like they used the same script for the two videos. I liked the fact that Juliana looked like a styled up housie in that particular scene hehehe. This is a compliment by the way.
The copy and paste stuff isn’t new to us. Ugandans copy anything. If at all anything is in vogue anywhere, we pick it up really fast. Let’s not be hypocritical here. I think it’s even a hereditary thing. The lack of originality sinks way deep into our DNA. Juliana is just an easy target probably because she is a renowned singer and public figure. As much as it kinda kills me to know that Juliana, an experienced and talented artiste in her own right would lack originality, I am happy to look beyond that glitch. Didn’t you guys marvel at the quality of the picture? Mehn, the video was sharp. The angles, the lighting and of course Juliana looked beautiful. You can tell that this is a lazy attempt for me to seem like some experienced music video critic. Something most Ugandans excel at. Ugandans like pretending to be authorities on every issue. Ugandans need to understand that they can’t be authorities on everything. I am guilty of this sometimes. Guys, you need to chill sometimes
Above all the noise, I believe the video and audio of the song were awesome. Certainly not Juliana’s greatest work to date but you can tell this is an artiste that still wants to be up there among the elite. I am not Juliana’s biggest fan but I like to acknowledge effort. I also love people who overcome adversity against all odds to become great. The message in the song is quite inspirational too. Wama good to have you back Juliana!