NYEGE NYEGE
Nyege Nyege: An Uncontrollable Urge to Dance
Erin Cobby meets the organisers and artists involved in Nyege Nyege, the East-African collective introducing new fusions and genres to Uganda and beyond.
“Nyege Nyege!” erupts from all corners of Nyege Nyege festival, it seems to happen randomly, filling the rare lull between sets that run from Thursday evening until the early hours of Monday morning. Posed as a call and response, it puts the similar “Dave, Alan!” chant common throughout English festivals to shame. People don’t just shout it, they emit it – eyes shining brightly, they throw their heads back, until everyone around them echoes the same words – it’s not a chant, it’s a rallying cry.
The meaning of 'Nyege Nyege' was one of the first questions I posed to Derek G. Debru, one of the collective’s organisers, when we met up back in Kampala a few months later to discuss their festival, label and everything else they do. Back in Jinja, the festival’s Nile-side location, I’d asked a few patrons the meaning of the word and got a variety of answers. “Sex” was one that came up a lot, as did “testicles”, something whispered to me by a very timid, blushing man. When I relayed this to Derek he laughed, clarifying that testicles were “negge, negge” in Luganda.
He explained the name was born when one of his Muganda friends turned to him at a party and tried to convey what he was feeling but couldn’t find the words in English. It turns out what he was trying to explain was the Ugandan concept of “Nyege Nyege”, the uncontrollable urge to dance. This seems a perfect name as when I ask Derek to describe the overarching sound of Nyege Nyege. “There's definitely an emphasis on booty shaking,” he tells me. “You know people love to dance here, like it’s a natural interaction with music.”
However, the confusion is understandable, with Uganda alone being host to 43 living languages. In Swahili, Nyege Nyege means ‘horny, horny’, a different kind of uncontrollable urge, something which hasn’t helped detract from Uganda’s Minister of Ethics, Simon Lokodo, attempting to have the festival banned for being a hub for hidden homosexuals.
Once inside, Nyege Nyege festival feels miles away from the divisive politics it has found itself embroiled in. The space - half beach, half jungle - is generous enough to wander through, yet the seven intimate stages allow the festival to retain the smaller party vibe Nyege Nyege has grown from. This potentiality of individual experience is made more impressive as MTN sponsorship, Uganda’s largest telecom company, made 2018 the biggest festival yet, with 8,500 attendees.
This sponsorship is representative of the fine line Derek and the other organisers have to tread when contemplating festival growth. While corporate sponsorship would spell sell-out to many western festival goers, Derek suggests there is little “anti-corporate culture” within Uganda. Sponsorship denotes legitimacy, rather than the opposite. The challenge is “more in terms of managing the popularity and making sure the vibe and culture of the festival doesn't get diluted,” Derek states.
This threat seems to come from two angles. As a festival founded by Europeans, they have to be hypersensitive to avoid pushing musical colonialism and instead encourage natural growth. This seems to be working given the large Ugandan following and network Nyege Nyege has fostered from the outset. Derek states he wants to avoid having Nyege Nyege go the same way some other festivals based in Africa, with a programme entirely for tourists which doesn’t engage with host communities.
They also face the problem of ensuring the festival programming retains the fringe local genres that were instrumental in their decision to launch the Nyege Nyege collective. Many Ugandan patrons going for the experience would be just as happy listening to more mainstream music. Derek states this divide was even more apparent last year, citing that during Juliana Huxtable’s set, about half the crowd was white. He then went to check out the other stages, like Bell Jams and Wild Bay, the MTN stage, which was largely, if not completely, Ugandan. “So that just triggers questions”, he states.
It seems the challenge Nyege Nyege organisers face now, having created a festival big enough to have something for everybody, is encouraging these people to mix. “From the beginning we wanted to create something that really showcases all the sounds that are on the continent and also give people an opportunity here to listen to something else.” Derek tells me. If this task seems gargantuan, Nyege Nyege are definitely capable of achieving it.
Originally posted on Boiler Room August 7th 2019