Investigating the role of a national soundscape in promoting popular Ugandan music on the world music scene: a case study of selected popular music genres produced in Kampala Uganda

Abstract

The study considers the possibility of having a distinct and unique soundscape that would characterize Uganda’s popular music sound focusing on its role in promoting the country’s popular music on the world-wide scene. This study specifically focuses on popular music produced in the capital Kampala city. The objective was to find out the importance of having a distinct and unique soundscape in promoting Uganda’s popular music on the world music scene. . The researcher also looks at the nature of Uganda’s popular music examining what musics constitute Ugandan popular music. In this research, a qualitative research approach was used in order to focus on gathering indepth insights into people's experiences, behaviors, cultures, and social interactions. This helped emphasize themes, patterns, and meanings derived from data such as interviews, observations, documents, and audiovisual materials from the data collected to be able to establish the following. The study established that the possibility of a distinct Ugandan soundscape is impossible, this is because the culture in the country is extremely diverse. Each and every tribe or ethnicity has its own culture as well as the musics that represent it. The researcher also established that one of the biggest challenges of promoting Ugandan music is that Ugandans are not original thus making it difficult to market such music on the world-wide scene.The research er therefore concluded that having a national sound is important as it sets the country’s music apart from the rest as it provides a sense of identity, popularize the country’s indigenous instruments as well as the different cultures of Uganda. The research also recommended that experimentation of Ugandan indigenous sounds, cross cultural collaborations, strengthening of copyright laws and music literacy of artists could go a long way in encouraging the creation of a Ugandan Soundscape that could be marketable on the World Music scene.