10 Years of Uganda’s Nyege Nyege Festival

This year, East Africa’s biggest festival is turning 10 years old. The first time I visited Nyege Nyege Festival was back in 2018, and I was unprepared for what I discovered. Nestled next to the River Nile, the sound of monkeys chattering in the trees overhead mixed with the heavy beats coming from the decks in the jungle. It was an explosion of creativity, with artists from all over the world collaborating with homegrown talent to create music which both platforms and develops traditional Ugandan sounds. A space of incandescent joy, punters danced from stage to stage with wide smiles and the chant of ‘Nyege Nyege’ on their lips. A near 24-hour experience, it pushed the boundaries of what a festival could be, with an accessible DIY feel which encouraged relationship-building between not just members of the crowd, but the entirety of people in attendance. From watching adungu and nanga harp master and singer Otim Alpha make frenetic music with synths, to being mesmerised by the movements of dancers wearing intergalactic outfits made from trash, I was hooked. It was an event that not only spawned my music journalism career but also created an obsession with the musical community I found there that has continued to dominate my working life. And I’m not the only one. The mark that Nyege Nyege has made, not only on those involved in the running of the festival, but also on the local music scene in Kampala and beyond, cannot be understated. I spoke to some of those who have been there since the beginning, as well as others who have taken inspiration from the parties, to better understand the lore and legacy that the festival has created.

“The festival grew out of community parties”, explains co-founder Derek Debru when I ask him about the festival’s genesis. To begin with, he and Arlen Dilsizian would bring together musicians and artists from around Bunga to host movie or music nights. Many of the people involved, including Nihiloxica (a group which merges Bugandan drumming and UK bass) and Nairobi-based DJ and producer Blinky Bill, are still present in the festival’s line-ups today. Sometimes these DIY events would involve numerous DJs in the same area, and from there it wasn’t a huge leap to imagine a festival. “We had this conversation about putting on a longer party in April”, explains Darlyne Komukama, who started working in communications at the first Nyege party, but is now a DJ and artist in her own right. “We gave ourselves six months to plan a festival for the first time. Don’t do that.”

That first year, Nyege Nyege didn’t sell many tickets. “We spent our life savings”, says Derek. “Halfway through, we were like, either we spend it all and make sure people come back, or we’re just going to risk a flop.” DJs from across the continent and beyond were assembled that first year, for an audience of around 500 people. “I wouldn’t even call it a festival,” says Derek, “it was more like a crazy rave for three days in the mud and the rain – it was really messy.”

He goes on to explain a free-for-all atmosphere, where most of the crowd were artists themselves, and people would camp wherever they felt like. “We had a few people from the local military secure the perimeter and [we had] 10 kickboxers walking around to make sure everything was cool”, he says, laughing. At the time, this energy was new in the region, with the organisers taking inspiration from the Rift Valley festival in Kenya, which Derek claims “showed us it was possible.”

“We had no commercial music whatsoever, it was a great time, we went with the flow and lost every single penny”, says Derek. “But it felt worth it; we needed somewhere to get together and play our music, and amplify whatever was going on in our scene.”

Darlyne regales me with her favourite moments from that first year. “It was storming so badly that one of the river stages had to be moved into where the sound was set up. So, we had Mungo’s Hi Fi inside this tiny tent with local MCs rapping over their sound. It was very intimate, especially with the storm raging outside; it felt very spiritual.” She also tells me about Fucking Boys who hail from Ghana. “The lights cut out right in the middle of their set on the main stage”, she remembers, laughing. “But everyone in the audience came through and turned on the torches on their phones. The group came to the end of the stage and played an acoustic set. It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever been a part of, but there are no videos or photos of it because everyone’s phones were already in use!”

This fantastic, chaotic energy couldn’t last. As the festival grew, the organisers needed to decide the direction they wanted the party to go in. “From the beginning, we realised it was either going to be an alternative bubble and stay underground,” explains Derek, “or we were going to have to make it attractive to people who were not used to partying in a forest for three days and listening to weird music.”

To make things more financially viable, in 2017, Nyege Nyege decided to get their first big sponsor, Bell Lager. “Overnight, they had set up a stage bigger than any of our stages!’ exclaims Derek. “They had four DJs on that thing rocking the crowd 24/7, and as people came in, that’s what they congregated towards.” To combat this, Nyege Nyege have almost set up a festival within a festival over the years. Some punters will spend all four days between the main stage and the tents sponsored by local beer companies, playing local Kampala club music. In contrast, others will go off searching for more experimental experiences, often found in hidden corners like the Dark Star stage.

However, the problems associated with growth weren’t limited to the genres of music being played. In 2018, Nyege Nyege partnered with MTN, Uganda’s largest telecoms company. The subsequent investment in the festival included MTN’s decision to advertise the event on multiple billboards across Kampala. While attracting new punters, this level of notoriety also attracted the wrong sort of attention. On September 3, 2018, Simon Lokodo, Uganda’s ethics and integrity minister, wrote a letter to the country’s internal affairs minister, Jeje Odongo, calling for the cancellation of the festival. In it, he stated that, “the purpose of this festival, in the last two years, has been compromised to accommodate the celebration and recruitment of young people into homosexuality and [the] LGBT movement.”

“They accused us of open-air orgies, devil worship, having sex with animals, you name it”, explains Derek. “The country was in a moment of discussing cultural norms, and it led to a banning of the festival.” Luckily, the government realised that the benefit to tourism was too great and the festival was allowed to go ahead. However, this was mere weeks before the start date.

“From there, it’s been an uphill battle to try and explain what we’re doing”, says Derek. “We now invite officials every year.” After continued political outrage, this slow winning over of the government does finally seem to have been successful, and last year the government published an 80-page document which delved into not only the economic benefits of the festival, but also how the Nyege Nyege brand acts as a global ambassador for Ugandan culture.

This isn’t the only time the festival has had bad press, however. The 2018 iteration turned out to be an incredible success, with Boiler Room shooting multiple sets in the jungle and the festival attracting international attention. Publications like Fact reported that “the world’s best electronic music festival is in Uganda.”

Because of glowing international reviews in 2018 and 2019, the festival increased the capacity from 9,000 to 15,000 and moved to a new venue at Itanda Falls for its first version after COVID-19. However, in this case, bigger didn’t necessarily mean better. As part of the move to the new site, Nyege Nyege got into business with a man called Arthur Kirunda, who promised to build bespoke luxury accommodation for middle-class Ugandans, each unit costing on average three million Ugandan shillings, the equivalent of around £700. Unfortunately, when people arrived, these were still half-built, with no locks and no running water.

“It was a confidence scam”, says Derek about the accommodation. “It needed to work, so you believe in it more. Then add the torrential rains, the site being so far away, and the roads being muddy, it just became really tough.” These weren’t the only issues. One of the sponsors that year plugged into the generators and blew up one of the stages on day one. This, combined with worries about safety due to insufficient lighting, and the fact that people’s expectations were so high after the hiatus, disappointed many attendees. “Ugandans are used to making it work”, explains Derek, “it was more the foreigners that were dissatisfied by the experience. People were calling Nyege Nyege ‘The Tomorrowland of Africa’, and that’s obviously not what they got.” These shortcomings were well publicised in the media, and Nyege Nyege lost almost $100,000.

“After that, we really felt the cold shoulder from the European electronic community,” explains Derek. “Prior to this, we were the darling of the industry; everyone was our biggest champions. But after that year, all our challenges were completely overshadowed. We got totally depressed.”

So, the team went back to the drawing board, while seeking to retain the DIY attitude that has always been at the heart of the Nyege Nyege operation. It tested out new sites in the centre of Jinja town, using hotels as accommodation. When I returned last year, this worked beautifully and allowed the festival to trial out a day programme for the first time, with many local businesses opening their doors for Nyege Nyege-related events. My highlight was the Sudanese Pavilion, which acted as a hub to show off the photography, food, crafts and, most importantly, music of the many Sudanese refugees living in Uganda. “It’s miraculous that we’re getting to number 10,” says Derek, “we’ve really had to grind it out.”

Yet, Nyege Nyege is not just a once-a-year festival. The collective throws parties year-round, organises global tours for their artists, has two record labels (Nyege Nyege Tapes and Hakuna Kulala), creates educational music videos and much more. “It’s all connected”, explains Derek. “That’s the strength of what we do, every piece feeds into the same enterprise or cultural movement.”

This is exemplified through Nyege Nyege’s support of traditional African music. This has been done in multiple ways, from creating documentaries on the court music of the kingdom of Buganda, which is struggling to keep alive a century-old tradition, to making music videos and recording professional releases for lukeme player Ekuka Morris Sirikiti before he recently passed. Traditional musicians also tour under the Nyege Nyege label. I saw the Nakibembe Xylophone troupe at Roskilde Festival in Denmark in 2022, an incredible example of how Nyege Nyege is spreading the word about traditional African music around the globe.

And it’s not just abroad that traditional music is being increasingly heard. Before Nyege Nyege, a lot of what was played in Uganda was foreign music. I chatted with Ethiopian DJ Hibotep, who has been with Nyege Nyege since its inception. “We would make jokes that the government manufactures a CD and gives it to everyone to play”, she says, laughing. “It would be a mix of ‘Call Me Maybe’, Justin Bieber and some dancehall. Every night, you could predict what the next track was going to be; it was that bad.”

She states that Nyege Nyege helped open this up, something echoed by most people I spoke to. Richard O’doi, founder of Underground Kampala, a techno night which has been part of the Kampala nightlife for a number of years, singles out Nyege for nurturing music producers like Nsasi, who “infuse traditional Ugandan music with modern sounds, blending past and present to create something completely unique.”

“Traditional music, which would have only been played in local groups in Gulu, has been highlighted”, explains Derek. “It helped people realise, we’re actually 54 tribes here and everyone has their own personal sound. Why in Kampala are we only listening to Nigerian music?”

And it’s not only traditional music that Nyege Nyege has helped to champion; this spirit of creativity has fed into the wider musical community and encouraged other festivals and music collectives to spring up. Richard says, “Nyege Nyege’s club nights nurtured so many artists in different aspects, from DJs to fashion designers to producers. Nyege saw what was already there and just provided more tools to artists.” Darlyne echoes this statement: “Nyege gave people permission to share their experimentation, their outsiderness. It showed people that the space is there.” Hibotep has started her own parties called ROHO Day and ROHO Night, the first a celebration for African and Caribbean music from the 30s-60s; the latter, she tells me, “is for people to clean their memory and be taken to the dungeons.”

Nyege Nyege has also widened the space for who can be a big player in the Kampala nightlife scene. “When I started DJing, there were three women”, says Hibotep. “Now, the majority of DJs I see are women. Males in the scene used to come and unplug things and try and make us look bad, but they no longer try and cross that boundary that we’ve created. You might still get some comments here and there, but now we can look them in the eye and say: ‘This is our event, we’re organising it, we’re playing it and we’re doing the sound engineering. We’re really not in need of you guys.’” Nyege Nyege set up many DJing classes for women, allowing them the space to experiment within the Nyege Nyege villa and have free access to production equipment. Darlyne greatly benefitted from this, stating that when she started DJing in 2019, she would have multiple YouTube tabs open and switch between them. “The people on the dance floor were like ‘darling, you need to start mixing. The fact that we need to stop moving while you switch to another tab isn’t really working,’” she laughs.

There are many similar stories. Derek highlights DJ DIAKI, who, prior to Nyege Nyege, never had a passport, and is now playing CTM festival for over £1,000, or DJ Travella, who lived in the festival’s Instagram comment section for six months, and after finally joining the collective is enjoying international success, followed by globally recognised artists like Arca. It’s this international community that Hibotep highlights as something she’s most proud of. “If anyone leaves, it’s because they wanted to,” she says, a point verified by the fact that DJ Kampire and rapper MC Yallah have gone on to be represented by different agents that are not part of the Nyege Nyege crew. “They’ll always keep the family going.”

So, with such a storied history, how can this festival celebrate its 10th anniversary? By, just as this article did, going back to the beginning. Derek tells me that they were recently made aware that Nyege Nyege wasn’t the first celebration of creativity on the banks of the Nile. Ekigunda Omuliro, which translates to ‘Gathering of the Flame’, was an ancient festival in which different communities gathered to celebrate, share stories, play music and encourage fertility for the surrounding land. So, this year, after the turbulent trajectory that Nyege Nyege has forged, the 10th anniversary will be a celebration of going back to basics and treasuring the ethos that was birthed in a muddy forest back in 2015. With its usual side of chaos, of course.