Robert Kyagulanyi (aka Bobi Wine), right
Check out this [gossipy] article narrating the travails of a Ugandan musician called Bobi Wine (real name Robert Kyagulanyi) and the used Escalade he bought a couple of years ago from the United States.
Musicians everywhere rely on a combination of talent, lucky timing and ability to carry off bombastic (some might say ‘outrageous’) gestures. Unless they have plenty of the first element (talent), the other two usually don’t serve them long enough. That’s why Britain’s Rick Astley hasn’t been heard of in 20 years but George Michael still fills stadiums. Rick Astley was around at the right time but didn’t have solid song writers and thus didn’t develop a good enough body of work to carry him beyond 1990. George Michael, however, writes his own stuff, and has managed to hang around despite so-so offerings some years ago and a scandal-ridden personal life.
In Uganda most musicians make music using drum machines, don’t really have much talent, and rely on a lucky hit to propel them to the limelight. Unfortunately most of them don’t have the acumen and/or charisma to mix their luck with self-promotion and so too many Ugandan musicians have the shelf-life of a packet of milk.
The exceptions have been individuals like Bobi Wine, Bebe Cool (Moses Ssali), Jose Chameleon (Joseph Mayanja), Julianna Kanyomozi and groups such as the incomparable Afrigo Band which has been going strong for more than 30 years. Ssali, Kyagulanyi, Kanyomozi and Mayanja have survived because they have reasonable vocal talent to speak of. One should thus expect them to hang around for a while longer if they continue to regularly refer back to what made them successful in the first place.
There are signs, though, that Bobi Wine, 30, is beginning to lose the plot. Buying the Escalade at the time when most of America was running away from the vehicle due to its prohibitively high maintenance costs means that he got it at a bargain basement price - likely paid less than $10,000 for it. Including the purchase price, shipping,handling, vanity registration plates and taxes, he likely forked out anywhere up to $40,000 (100m/=) to put it on Uganda’s roads.
Averaging just 11 miles per gallon in city driving and 16 miles on the highway, one has to wonder how Bobi Wine expected to keep that vehicle running with gas prices in Uganda averaging $7.65 a gallon for the last goodness knows how many years.
Bobi Wine and his Escalade in less embarrassing times
To put it in perspective, it takes 30 gallons (113 liters) to fill up an Escalade. In Uganda, that would cost Bobi Wine a whopping 400,000/= ($163); far more than a teacher’s monthly salary. But the Escalade guzzles 1 gallon per 11 miles, meaning that it would run empty after doing just 330 miles (568 km). If he were to drive that thing from Kampala to Mbarara, 290km away, he would have no fuel left by the time he got back.
But this assumes that Bobi Wine bought a new Escalade which he likely didn’t despite his claims to the contrary. Older cars (given when he bought it, his must be a 2000-2006 model) consume even more fuel so it is reasonable to assume that Wine’s Escalade now guzzles an astonishing 8 miles to the gallon. He thus cannot drive it to Mbarara and back without refueling. No wonder the article above mentioned Bobi Wine’s lament that he can’t drive the thing over long distances.
Wine’s One Love Beach resort: some of the structures were built on land that didn’t belong to him and have already been demolished
Why does any of this matter? It matters because a cursory examination of Wine’s income should show anyone interested that he can’t afford to run that sort of vehicle.
Ugandan musicians are lucky to be paid $1500 a show. Unlike in America and Europe, they get no recurring royalties from their music, instead getting a lump sum when they produce a hit and, perhaps, when they put on a successful song or album “launch.’ Piracy sees to what could be of the rest of their income. They mostly perform ‘live’ in local bars and nightclubs around Uganda for between $800 and $1000 (often less than that), which rises to $2,000 if the show in question is a really big one. But those big gigs aren’t that many in Uganda. That means that they mostly work for a pittance which explains why so many of them produce one hit, and then disappear never to be heard from again.
The drum machine; without it, most Ugandan singers wouldn’t produce any music whatsoever
After Bobi Wine has paid off his agents, minders, hangers-on, you are talking about $300-800 left even for the biggest gigs in Uganda. It is for that reason that Ugandan musicians ply their trade endlessly in small, seedy, nondescript nightclubs, sometime spending just a few minutes lip-synching to a CD in one bar, then driving helter-skelter 100-300km in the middle of the night to honor gigs in conflicting parts of the country. Unless they do that, they can’t sustain their usually outrageous, hedonistic and expensive lifestyles.
So, we know that Bobi Wine has only to drive out of his home in his Escalade to start frittering away $163 ($400,000/=). Remember, too, that we haven’t yet talked about servicing it, buying replacement parts (there is no Cadillac dealership in Uganda) or keeping it comprehensively insured which is the only sensible option if you drive that type of vehicle in Uganda.
Yet, obviously, Bobi Wine doesn’t make as much money as the public thinks he does. He has even been involved in, and lost, costly land wrangles in Busabala where he built a resort he called ”One Love Beach” whose economic viability is not yet proven. That little project of his has probably not yet turned a profit, three years on - and it is doubtful that it is properly or professionally managed given the dubious process of its erection. Musicians like Bobi Wine don’t have a track record of hiring professionals to manage such businesses, choosing instead to install their wives, relatives of girlfriends as managers.
The question in the minds of Bobi Wine’s fans should be … is he going broke?
The answer at this point is that … I don’t know. What is fairly apparent is that he bought a car that he should have figured out he couldn’t afford. That should tell you a thing or two about Kyagulanyi’s ability keep perspective as well as to do simple house-keeping arithmetic. His bombastic gesture of yonder years has backfired on him spectacularly as the regular embarrassments he suffers when his Escalade breaks down on Kampala’s streets illustrate. You have to wonder why he didn’t keep the thing for just twelve months and then sell it off when its mystic was still intact. Now, reports suggest that he wants to sell it, but only an idiot of epic proportions would buy that ramshackle off him, surely.
Robert Kyagulanyi had better have enough talent to keep the hits coming since he is clearly not astute enough where choosing the appropriate ride for his financial status is concerned. If he has run out of hit-making ideas … with his kind of lifestyle and spending habits …
That prospect is too wretched to bear. Best to remain optimistic … for his sake and the sake of those who admire him. Yours truly inclusive.
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Good analysis but please remember that Bobi Wine is a genius who has alot in his mind besides singing and he will be worth another profession apart from being a musician as he is already adored by many in different walks of life in uganda though u r not one. so leave it there but good article