Paulo Kafeero
| Prince Paul Kafeero, Paul Job Kafeero | |
|---|---|
| Born |
12 July 1970 Uganda |
| Died | 17 May 2007 (aged 36) Mulago, Kampala, Uganda |
| Residence | Kampala, Uganda |
| Nationality | Ugandan |
| Citizenship | Uganda |
| Education | secondary school |
| Occupation | musician, entertainer, composer, farmer |
| Years active | 1988–2007 |
| Known for | music |
| Home town | Masaaba, Nkokonjeru |
Kafeero, Paul Job (1970–2007) (Prince Paul Job Kafeero, Paulo Kafeero, the Golden Boy of Africa), the most celebrated composer and singer in the Ugandan tradition of Kadongo Kamu. At the time of his death, he was planning to celebrate 20 years of an illustrious music career. His catalogue consists of 83 songs on 21 albums. It was his 1994 hit Walumbe Zaaya, a fifteen-minute lament on death in which no word is repeated, which sent him into the Ugandan musical stratosphere. That song earned him the enduring nickname the Golden Boy of Africa from the 1994 Cairo music festival attended by thousands of African contestants, where he won a gold medal from the Institute d'Etudes Theatreales. In 2003, his hit song Dipo Naziggala, which pokes fun at the drinking habits of Ugandans, won a Pearl of Africa Music Award (PAM) for best Kadongo Kamu single. In both 2003 and 2004, he won the PAM award for best Kadongo Kamu artist/group).
Kafeero was born 12 July 1970 to Vicencio Nanganga and Phiromera Nannozi of Kirembe, Nkokonjeru in Buikwe District. This region is also known as Kyaggwe County. His mother died in 1990, just as Kafeero was beginning to achieve fame. His father died in 2011.
In 1977, Kafeero began school at Nkokonjeru Demonstration Primary School, and went on to Ngogwe Baskerville secondary school, walking the four kilometres there each day. In the same year he began school, his father left the family. Because of his mother's opposition to his interest in music, he went to stay in the nearby village of Masaba with his older sister Grace and her husband. Grace's husband intermittently paid his school fees after his father's abandonment. With no secure source of school fees, Kafeero did not finish secondary school. He earned money by making bricks, cultivating beans, selling used clothes, and tailoring. Kafeero's father gave no further support and had no contact with his son until he became famous.
As a child in the village, Kafeero was interested in music. He joined the primary school choir, but was dismissed by the choir director for being too quiet. When Kafeero learned of a neighbour in Masaba who owned a guitar, he became a regular visitor and learned to play. His mother was virulently opposed to his passion for Kadongo Kamu, afraid he would waste his life in useless pursuit. He would gather the stems and fibres from banana plants to create stringed instruments, which his mother would destroy. He eventually pooled resources with his sister's son to buy a four-stringed guitar from the neighbour who taught him to play. He would interrupt his work in bean gardens to listen to Radio Uganda's Kadongo Kamu show, featuring the stars Dan Mugula, Fred Ssebatta, Christopher Ssebaduka, Fred Masagazi, and Matia Luyima, most of whom eventually came to work with or for Kafeero.
...
Wikipedia