The desk
The Mpabeat Journal
Music, entertainment, culture and the business of Ugandan sound, reported with care.
More from the desk
71 published stories
Music ReleasesHow Ugandan artists are using Amapiano to reinvent local sound
{"executiveSummary":"Platform metrics demonstrate steady organic streaming growth and strong mobile money payment completion rates.","growthPillars":["High streaming retention","Active weekend download spikes"],"operationalAlerts":["Review pending catalog items to maintain...
Mpabeat Support
Uganda Industry NewsUgandan Artists Navigate Political Endorsements in 2026
The moment is almost always the same. A stage somewhere in Kampala, lights hot, crowd loud, and a politician walking up the steps with a microphone in one hand and a fistful of cash in the other.
Mpabeat Support
Uganda Industry NewsPolitics and Music Festivals in Uganda: The 2026 Intersection
There was a moment, somewhere between the second and third headline sets at a packed Kampala outdoor festival this year, when the crowd stopped dancing and started listening.
Mpabeat Support
Music ReleasesCensorship broadcasting standards and Ugandan music
{"executiveSummary":"Platform metrics demonstrate steady organic streaming growth and strong mobile money payment completion rates.","growthPillars":["High streaming retention","Active weekend download spikes"],"operationalAlerts":["Review pending catalog items to maintain...
Mpabeat Support
Uganda Industry NewsUganda's Creative Economy Gets Government Boost in 2026
Something shifted in Kampala this January, and it was not just the January heat or the usual post festive season quiet that settles over the city like dust on a boda boda seat. It was the sound of money being talked about in the same breath as music, film, fashion, and design.
Mpabeat Support
Regional NewsMuhoozi Donates Shs100M to Tooro King's Coronation
FORT PORTAL. There is a particular kind of music that plays at a coronation, and it is not the kind you hear on radio countdowns. It is the long, patient sound of drums that have waited generations for their moment.
Mpabeat Support
Uganda Industry NewsUganda's Music as Protest: 2026 Political Expression
There is a moment, somewhere between the third and fourth song of almost every big Ugandan concert in 2026, when the crowd stops behaving like a crowd and starts behaving like a movement.
Mpabeat Support
Uganda Industry NewsHow Politics Influences Uganda's Music Industry in 2026
The relationship between politics and music in Uganda has never been a simple love affair. It is a dance, sometimes graceful, sometimes clumsy, occasionally dangerous, and in 2026 it has become the single most defining force shaping how songs are made, who gets played, who gets...
Mpabeat Support
Celebrity & EntertainmentAfrigo Band Founder Moses Matovu Killed Intervening in Domestic Dispute, Girlfriend Tells Police
Kampala has had a hard week. The kind of week where the city wakes up to a phone screen full of bad news and then spends the rest of the day trying to argue itself out of believing it.
Mpabeat Support
Uganda Industry NewsMuhoozi Hails Swift Arrest of Afrigo Band Founder's Suspected Killer
The news hit Kampala like a bass drum dropped on concrete. Moses Matovu, the man who gave Afrigo Band its name, its spine and its sixty year heartbeat, was gone.
Mpabeat Support
Celebrity & EntertainmentUganda's Most Stylish Musicians: 2026 Fashion Icons
Walk into any Kampala barbershop on a Saturday morning and listen to what the young men are arguing about. It is never just music anymore. It is the jacket. The shoes. The sunglasses worn indoors at 9pm.
Mpabeat Support
Celebrity & EntertainmentKampala's Celebrity Business Boom: Stars Turn Moguls in 2026
There is a moment, somewhere between the last song and the first light of dawn, when Kampala stops being a city and becomes a marketplace. Ask anyone who has crawled through the Industrial Area at 2am, or queued outside a Kololo lounge on a Friday, and they will tell you the same...
Mpabeat Support
Celebrity & EntertainmentUganda Music Industry: Social Media Feuds Erupt in 2026
The year 2026 will not be remembered in Ugandan music for a single anthem, a single concert, or a single breakout star. It will be remembered for the noise.
Mpabeat Support
Celebrity & EntertainmentMuseveni to Attend Tooro King Coronation on Sept 29, 2026
There is a particular kind of electricity that moves through Fort Portal when the drums start talking. It is not the loud, chaotic energy of Kampala nightlife, nor the staged excitement of a concert at Lugogo. It is older, slower, and far more deliberate.
Mpabeat Support
Celebrity & EntertainmentAfrigo Band Founder Moses Matovu Killed in Kibuli Gang Attack
Kampala woke up on September 24, 2026, to news that felt less like a headline and more like a wound. Moses Matovu, the man who built Afrigo Band from a small Kampala dream in 1975 into the longest running institution in Ugandan popular music, was gone.
Mpabeat Support
Celebrity & EntertainmentHow Celebrity Endorsements Are Reshaping Ugandan Marketing in 2026
Walk through Kampala on any given weekday and the city itself becomes a billboard. A boda boda rider in Ntinda wears a telecom-branded helmet while a matatu on Entebbe Road blasts a jingle recorded by a singer whose face also stares down from a betting shop wall in Kikuubo.
Mpabeat Support
Celebrity & EntertainmentUganda's Most Influential Celebrity Couples of 2026
There is a particular kind of electricity that runs through Kampala when two famous people decide to love each other out loud. It is not just gossip. It is economics, it is branding, it is the way a boda boda rider in Ntinda hums a duet without knowing he is doing it.
Mpabeat Support
Uganda Industry NewsUganda's Music Video Economics: Who Really Pays?
There is a moment every Ugandan music fan knows too well. A new song drops, the artist posts a fifteen second teaser on their WhatsApp status, and within hours the full video lands on YouTube. The colours are loud. The drone shots sweep over Kampala rooftops at golden hour.
Mpabeat Support
Celebrity & EntertainmentWhy Some Ugandan Songs Become Wedding Anthems
There is a moment that happens at nearly every Ugandan wedding, usually somewhere between the cake cutting and the speeches that refuse to end, when the DJ leans into the microphone, the first few notes drop, and the entire tent loses its mind.
Mpabeat Support
Uganda Industry NewsRadio Still Breaks Ugandan Songs: Inside the 2026 Airwave Effect
There is a moment that happens almost every week in Uganda, and it rarely makes headlines. A song that has been sitting quietly on YouTube, maybe with a few thousand views and a handful of TikTok clips, suddenly detonates. Not because of an algorithm.
Mpabeat Support
Uganda Industry NewsHow Ugandan Artists Use WhatsApp Status to Drop Hits in 2026
On a humid Friday evening in Nansana, a boda boda rider named Ssalongo pulls over near the taxi stage, wipes his screen with the edge of his shirt, and taps the first green circle at the top of his WhatsApp.
Mpabeat Support
Uganda Industry NewsUganda's Music Festivals: Economic Boom in 2026
The first weekend of December 2025 told the story better than any spreadsheet could. On a Friday evening, the taxi park at Nakawa was swollen with young people in matching jerseys and glow paint, all of them heading to a lakeside campsite for a three day festival that did not...
Mpabeat Support
Uganda Industry NewsUgandan Afrobeats vs East Africa: Who Wins in 2026?
Walk into any crowded taxi park in Kampala on a Friday evening and you will hear it. That slinky log drum, the wandering bassline, the chorus that half the passengers already know before the song has even finished its first radio run.
Mpabeat Support
Uganda Industry NewsHow Mobile Money Revolutionized Direct Music Sales in Uganda
There was a time, not so long ago, when a Ugandan artist with a hit song still had to beg. Beg radio stations for spins. Beg a promoter for a slot on a lineup. Beg a distributor in Kampala to press CDs and hope the money came back before the next rainy season.
Mpabeat Support
Uganda Industry NewsNorthern Uganda Music Renaissance: Gulu to Karamoja
There was a time, not so long ago, when a musician from Gulu who wanted a serious career had exactly one sensible plan: get on a bus to Kampala and never look back.
Mpabeat Support
Uganda Industry NewsInside Uganda's 2026 Studio Producer Economy
Walk into any of the newer recording rooms around Ntinda, Bukoto, Makindye or the upper floors of a busy Kampala arcade and you will notice something that would have confused a visitor ten years ago. The artist is not the loudest person in the room.
Mpabeat Support
Uganda Industry NewsTeso Leaders Launch Gen. Muhoozi 2031 Presidential Bid
There is something about Ugandan politics that never sleeps. Even before the last general election cycle has fully settled into the history books, the next one is already being written in hotel conference rooms, on WhatsApp groups, and at roadside press briefings in districts...
Mpabeat Support
Uganda Industry NewsHow TikTok Is Fueling Ugandan Breakout Hits in 2026
There is a particular sound that has been following Kampala around for the better part of this year. You hear it first from a boda boda speaker crackling somewhere along Jinja Road, then again from a salon in Ntinda, then from a group of schoolgirls in uniform doing the same four...
Mpabeat Support
Uganda Industry NewsHow 320kbps Masters Became a Music Business Tool in 2026
There is a moment every Ugandan artist remembers, whether they are a fresh-faced teenager recording their first track in a makeshift studio in Nansana or a veteran who has already filled Cricket Oval twice.
Mpabeat Support