Ssebatta
Fred Ssebatta spent his boyhood in downtown Kampala near the Old Taxi Park training as a mechanic. His mechanical lessons were, however, cut short following a brawl with his trainer. Looking back, Ssebatta says his trainer—a one Kimera—asked him to bring a wrench. When the young apprentice delayed, his master smacked him in the face. An argument, unsurprisingly, ensued.
“I remember the garage was in an open space under a mango tree just above the old park. Kimera sent me to bring him a wrench, alias sipanda, from a nearby garage and I slightly delayed. Upon returning, he boxed me in the face for delaying. I was hurt,” Ssebatta tells Saturday Monitor in an interview.
Livid and yet powerless, the youthful Ssebatta opted out of the training. Two hours later, he found his way to Kampala Boxing Club. He was determined to equip himself with skills in self-defence and, perhaps, forge a career in boxing.
Months later, he had to put his boxing dreams on the back-burner after being involved in an accident. The physician recommended that he quits boxing. Short of that, he risked suffering a hearing impairment.
Ssebatta was left with little choice but to return to a garage. This time in Ndeeba, a Kampala suburb. He says it was the place where he discovered his music talent. Moreover underneath the car.
Singing, Ssebatta says, spurred him on to finish his work in time. But whoever heard him sing always had one piece of advice: try out a career in music. So it was in Ndeeba that Ssebatta juggled music composition and mechanics. It was not that long that he encountered Prossy Nabigumira, a musician, who was later to become his lost rib.
Ssebatta, who stopped studying while in Senior Two, says he had earlier got an opportunity to teach in a primary school at Kikandwa. He later turned down the job due to little pay.
“While at Kalinabiri Senior Secondary School, my father asked me to cut my studies short in Senior Two because of limited finances so that he can give an opportunity to my siblings,” he reveals.
Hits the ground running
Ssebatta’s dream was to create music that mirrors social issues. His first song, however, ended up being a love ballad that evoked emotions as it resonated with many. He reveals that the song could paint the pain of women falling in love but finding it hard to open up.
Dubbed Sam wange, the seven-minute ballad has rich lyrics and dialogue. The song that features his late fiancé Nabigumira became a household track in the early 1980s so much so that Ssebatta recalls a music distributor—a one Kabugo—made a lot of money off it. The song—the first of more than 100—was remarkably recorded in a garden in 1981.
