Ugandans woke up on Thursday to the sudden news of the death of veteran musician Moses Matovu, the saxophonist and founding figure of Afrigo Band, who died at the age of 77. Matovu, whose career in music spanned more than five decades, died after he was attacked by unidentified assailants in Kampala, according to police.
His death brings to an end the life of one of the musicians who helped shape Uganda’s modern popular music, leaving behind a catalogue of songs including Sirina Anantwala Leero, Jim, Obangaina, Sikulimba, Abaana ba Afrigo, Speed Control, Olumbe Lw’obwavu, Tugenda Mu Afrigo, Mundeke, Mundeke , Twali Twagalana, Sirikusuula, Yantamiiza and Nantongo.
For more than five decades, Matovu remained at the centre of Afrigo Band as the group survived political upheaval, wars, changing generations and sweeping changes in music technology. He watched the industry move from jukeboxes and record players to radio cassettes, compact discs and, eventually, digital music and streaming platforms. But long before he became synonymous with Afrigo, Matovu was a footballer.
He played competitive football for several Ugandan clubs, including Express, the former Nakulabye Boys, Lint Marketing Board, Young Saloombe, Meatpackers, Uganda Police and Fiat. By about the age of 18, however, he had decided to make music his profession.
“You cannot be, let’s say, 40 years old, and you are still playing. It is not possible, except when you become a coach,” Matovu once said. Music, he believed, offered something football could not. At 77, he could still sing and pick up his saxophone.
“I can still sing, can still blow my horn. It is not like playing football when you are an old guy, but when you’re a musician, you can keep on,” he said. “I’ve never done another work, another job besides music.” Matovu’s musical journey began with Cranes Band.
When the band’s management announced in the mid-1970s that it would stop performing, Matovu and about seven other musicians refused to abandon music. “We cannot just stop playing music because that is the only work, we could get, the earning and whatever,” he recalled.
Six of the musicians decided to stay together and form another band. But there was an immediate problem: they had no equipment. At the time, musical equipment was difficult and expensive to obtain in Uganda. The expulsion of Asians under Idi Amin had also disrupted businesses that had supplied musical instruments.
The musicians began searching for equipment they could afford. Uganda was preparing to host the Organisation of African Unity summit, and hotels were acquiring equipment in preparation for visiting guests.
Matovu and his colleagues found used equipment that had belonged to Uganda Hotels. They could not afford to pay for it. The late Leonard Muganya, then a secretary of the Uganda Electricity Board who also operated a bar and restaurant, came to their rescue and agreed to finance the purchase. Muganya gave the young musicians somewhere to begin.
They started performing at his establishment three nights a week. A connection with another hotel later secured them a Sunday performance slot at Cape Town Villa. Their music eventually caught the attention of President Idi Amin, who used the area around the hotel for swimming and relaxation.
The musicians were offered an opportunity to become the hotel’s resident band. They remained there from late 1976 until 1979. That period gave the young musicians a platform, but it did not guarantee their survival. When war broke out, the band left the hotel without its equipment.
“The equipment was looted, and we went back to square zero,” Matovu recalled. The loss of their equipment could have ended the band. Instead, Matovu and his colleagues started again.They had little money and depended partly on friends and fans who sympathised with them.
At one point, Matovu considered moving to Nairobi. He had two saxophones and a trumpet and thought he could sell one of the instruments to raise money. But his colleagues decided to remain in Uganda. They hired instruments from other musicians and slowly rebuilt the band.
They began performing at Little Flowers on Fridays and Saturdays and later at Gaba Beach on Sundays. Weddings and private functions provided additional work. For Matovu, Afrigo survived because its members understood that every musician mattered.
“If you don’t have a drummer, you cannot play. If you have a bass player, you don’t have a guitar, so everyone is important,” he said. The musicians quarrelled at times, he recalled, but their relationship had become more like that of a family. “Sometimes when you grow together, it becomes a family,” he said.
When Afrigo celebrated 50 years, Matovu reduced the band’s longevity to three things: interest, commitment and discipline. “Those three things have kept us in the music industry,” he said. He believed musicians had to treat music as a profession and warned younger artists against indiscipline and excessive drinking.
“Music is like any other profession, so you have to build principles,” he said. A musician who kept listening. Perhaps one of the clearest explanations for Matovu’s longevity was his willingness to keep learning. He never regarded himself as having mastered music. He loved jazz and listened to Latin jazz and musicians from South America.
He admired South African jazz musicians and deliberately sought out musicians he considered better than himself. “I look for those guys who are better than me, because there are many. There are very many,” he said.
Among the musicians he admired was Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango. “Manu Dibango, those are the kings of a saxophone in Africa,” Matovu said. For Matovu, listening was part of becoming a better musician. When he began his career, access to foreign music was difficult.
A musician could buy a record or cassette and still struggle to find equipment on which to play it. The internet transformed that. He could now search for musicians from around the world and listen to their work almost instantly. He was interested not only in songs but in the distinctive sound of individual musicians.
“Through instruments, somebody can play guitar, and you say, that is so and so. Saxophone, so you have to try to see that you have the originality of your sound,” he said. Even after more than 50 years in the industry, Matovu continued to listen to music outside Afrigo.
He said he could not remain in a room without a radio playing. “It is because of love, love of music. I cannot be in my room or my bedroom when the radio is not on,” he once said. The arrival of FM radio in the 1990s, particularly stations such as Capital Radio, Sanyu FM and CBS, gave Afrigo’s music new platforms and helped expose the band to new audiences.
But Matovu’s own listening habits went beyond his band’s music.“I take music like food. Where there is food, it is where I look for,” he said. In his later years, Matovu was increasingly thinking about what would happen after him.
He noticed that parents were now bringing their children to musicians to learn singing and instruments such as drums, keyboards, guitar, and saxophone. He saw an opportunity to pass on what he had learned.
“Before I leave the stage, I would like to see that I have an academy where I can share what I know with other people, so that they can also get something from me,” he said. The academy never opened. It was an ambition that would have turned more than five decades of experience into a formal school for another generation of Ugandan musicians.
Instead, Matovu leaves behind the knowledge he shared through his performances, mentorship and conversations. He also leaves behind a question he once struggled to answer: what, after all those years, was his greatest achievement? Was it the albums, the money, the longevity, or the changes he had witnessed? Sometimes I fail to get the answer,” he admitted.
Perhaps the answer lies in the band itself. Afrigo was born after a group of musicians lost their jobs. They had no equipment, little money, and no guarantee that they would survive. They rebuilt after their equipment was lost during the war. They remained together as Uganda’s music industry changed around them. And Matovu remained at its heart.
He had moved from the football field to the stage because he believed music could stay with him long after football could no longer do so. Now, at 77, the musician who spent his life listening, learning and performing has died after an attack by unidentified assailants in Kampala, according to police.
He leaves behind Afrigo Band, generations of musicians influenced by its tradition, a catalogue of music that has travelled across generations, and an unfinished dream of building a place where young Ugandans could learn what he spent a lifetime mastering. His academy never opened. But the school of Afrigo, built through persistence, discipline, collective effort, and a love of music, remains-URN. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com
