Spotify’s New Podcast On The Struggle For Democracy In Uganda Releases New Episodes

 On  January 6th, Spotify in partnership with Dreamville Studios launched its new documentary podcast, The Messenger, which focuses on prolific Ugandan musician-turned activist, Bobi Wine. The podcast is available as a Spotify exclusive. 

 The podcast chronicles Wine’s transition from iconic musician to a fearless politician leading a movement to highlight and challenge President Yoweri Museveni’s oppressive 34-year regime over Uganda. The podcast comes just in time for Uganda’s pivotal election on January 14th, 2021, which has already given way to a campaign targeting and violence. 

This marks an unprecedented moment for Ugandan politics as the movement for Black lives has continued to spearhead political uprisings across Africa. Uganda has not witnessed a peaceful transfer of power since it attained independence in 1962.

The Messenger,hosted by Dreamville artist, Bas,  chronicles Wine’s transition from iconic musician to fearless politician to lead a movement challenging President Yoweri Museveni’s oppressive 34-year regime over Uganda. 

 Recently released episode five, entitled, “Black President,” takes a deep dive into another iconic activist-musician, Fela Kuti and the parallels of his plight towards progress with Bobi Wine’s. The episode chronicles Nigeria’s tumultuous journey entering a strict military dictatorship which led to prolific, controversial music projects like "Zombie,” while breaking down the inextricable tie between music and politics, how historical oppression made the act of listening to music itself a form of protest, and the weaponization of music in response. 

In episode five, Wine observes, "in my own opinion, music is as important as anything else. Music is a reflection of what is happening. It is the most effective way of communicating to people. But even historically, music has been used to communicate the plight of suffering people right from the days of slavery to the days of colonialism to apartheid and now to dictatorship here in Africa. 

"Music is a communication both inside and happy times. But politically, again, music has been the most effective since all the traditional political means of communications have been hijacked and under the final grip of the powers that be with the Ugandan elections just days away.”

The episode also dissects Fela’s catastrophic face off with dictator, Muhammadu Buhari after forming "Movement of the People,” and explains how Fela gained global attention for his activism from bands like U2, Coldplay and more. The episode also takes a special look at the recent End SARS movement, Fela's influence birthing the Afrobeat genre, and legacy inspiring musicians like Beyonce, J. Cole, Burna Boy today.

Wine notes in the episode, “you can trace that beat [you hear so often in American hip hop] back directly to Nigeria in the 1970s to one person. That person is Fela Kuti, Nigeria's most celebrated musician, political activist, and the man credited with inventing Afrobeat. His music library is perhaps the most sampled in history.

Episode six, entitled "Kampala on Fire," takes a deep dive into the recent events that have littered Wine’s campaign trail: from the police raids stealing campaign documents critical to Wine’s nomination, to the violence of tear gas and rubber bullets engulfing his caravan when picking up his nomination, to massive public outcry that broke out in Kampala over Bobi’s second arrest. The episode also draws pertinent comparisons of the U.S. to Uganda in light of American capitol building attacks just last week.

 Wine speaks out about elections under Museveni's rule, "“And the fact that anyone outside looking in, someone who may not know much about Uganda will see, well, you know, Uganda has elections. They have multiparty elections in which opposition candidates are allowed to run. But once you begin to peel back those layers, you will see every single election, five-year intervals, those who dare to criticize or to otherwise have the audacity to run in an election against President Museveni and his ruling party are arrested. They're being tortured. They're put in jail on entirely spurious and dubious charges. This doesn't happen in democracies. This doesn't happen in flawed democracies. This happens in dictatorships. And Uganda under where Museveni is, is absolutely one of them.”

 The Messenger podcast by Spotify has brought light to the darkness of Uganda's long struggle for true democratic rule. In the episodes, we witness heroes like Bobbi Wine and Fela Kuti using their influence to guide their nation and its people toward a world where liberty and freedom are more than slogans. 

Indeed, Spotify seems to recognize the power of podcasts when used for more than its pure entertainment value. When even the United States can be threatened by anti-democratic forces that stormed the Capitol last week, it is more important than ever that democratic efforts around the world are given the oxygen of visibility, the benefits of transparency, and the cleansing act of truth-telling.

You can tune into Episode 5 HERE and Episode 6 HERE.

 

Thanks to Arianne Antonio

 

 by

Frank Racioppi