A visiting DJs at Nyege Nyege.
Wheels of steel: The show business has evolved over the years to make the DJ genre a key part of live music. With more DJs becoming creative, the DJs have now become the show.
When he was doing his set on a Friday in April 2017, American DJ and music producer, Thomas Wesley Pentz, known professionally as Diplo, slowed the tempo when he played an abrupt climax of Whitney Houston’s I will Always Love You.
It was unprecedented, short, sweet and memorable – you did not see it coming or ending. But that was not even the highlight of the night that acted as the pilot of Kampala’s mainstream audience’s dive into electronic music. The highlight was Diplo’s ability to blend genres such as Uganda’s kidandali, Kenya’s Genge, Ghana and Nigeria’s Highlife with his staple electronic music sound.
He was a testament that a DJ may not necessarily need hits and famous songs to have an engaged audience, but the skill and ability to sell them a new sound.
At that time, the wave of electronic music was only picking up in Africa, and like whiskey, the audience was taking it in small doses, sometimes totally stripped down.
The beginning
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