Why art; The odds.

Why the art you make?
Why just the amount of art you make as well?
Why the way you make the art you make? Why not like the other artist? Why?
So many people ask me why I don’t do more with my art.
Why don’t you write more? Why don’t you sing more? Why don’t you record more? Why don’t you perform more? Why don’t you express yourself more?
Honestly, there have been enough reasons internally and without I’d consider as answers to those questions; the former counting for more of the quantitative aspect to the posited presupposition that I actually don’t do as much with art, and the latter with the more prohibitive qualitative substance, concerning the same presupposition.
There’s truly so much I could do that doesn’t even level with the common standard of normalcy for the trend of an artist’s expectancy of expression; a full length LP within the first two years of activity at least? A consistency in performance or at least a plan for that consistency with a tour or a monthly gig at some spot in town maybe? More knowledge of my artistic vision and intention- my niche, by now to others perhaps? Like what is the plan? You could do more! So what’s happening? Why isn’t there more? More of your art?
So here are some of the answers. Some of them are honestly just excuses in order that I may stay comfortable, where I am, with what I am. Others are seemingly more legitimate replies to the question within myself. For example, there’s the ever present anxiety that comes with being an artist and sharing opinion in this day and age to a knowledgeably critical society. The ever severe and scrutinizing age of post-modernism, would have an out-with-her-assertedly-new, if there was even but a hint of a reek on it, of derivity. It’s therefore more like in-with-the-non-existent- that which has never been before; although indeed there is nothing new under the sun. What is one supposed to be if art is only a reflection of community, belief, conviction and character? A freakin’ E.T is what. What I see and hope to reflect in my art is most of the time too foreign to those that listen. I live in an unexplored and uncharted part of their understanding and knowledge of community, belief, conviction and character. I search for Kindred and I am scared I shall never find them; or even worse- they shall never find me.
Example two; so much new music all the time every where and here’s the thing, most of it (if not all of it for actually making it out there) is pretty darn good. Almost every radio station and billboard countdown shall constantly prove this point and dilemma. I feel like sometimes music is thing sold in this huge store being restocked every minute; when you turn to head out, you realize you can’t leave because they are putting something new on the shelf that might not be there when you return. (Thank God for streaming sites because in life, some of us would have disowned this struggle.) The turn over of hits is insanely rapid; like you’d sneeze and the number one hit would have changed already twice or something. So what makes my art able to compete and handle the crazy system dynamic for music especially, internationally and locally? DJs help with this point too each time a song that hit a year or two ago plays and there you are, spouting out every lyric, but simultaneously wondering why don’t hear the song as much anymore, the same way you’d wonder about a friend you were in high school with; close af and then something almost mysterious and unexplainable happened- you just don’t talk anymore. Like how fickle and complex everything is about life hits you in that moment. Ask Missy Elliot and that double-bed Mazongoto guy. (Like where did they go?!)
Just think of all the one hit wonder makers that are dubbed such and dismissed as artists because they couldn’t keep up with how things go? There’s criticizing the status quo, and there’s just realizing that you need much more to have what it takes with all that’s expected in this day and age as a musician. How does one even begin with that when they hope and need their art to be heard? The answer is most don’t and others shouldn’t have in the first place. Harsh truths I must consider too.
Locally, just think about the difficulty to venture into the Ugandan art wilderness and will the existence of an urban cosmopolitan enterprise in sync with the rest of the globalized word, amidst its hard and fast set rules that everything touches, when the facts are that we would take the parts of that we like and punish others that see the truths of what is disliked. We like the feeling of a progressive musical development, but would like the way things are to remain the way things are too. One genre- Ugandan music; yet progression and globalization is the product of cultural diversity, even within Uganda itself; the different languages, the different genres from Luga-flow and Kadongo Kamu to World music and Afro-pop.
Each of these artists in their own ways pushing up the massive boulder of cultural acceptance up the Ugandan music hill, sorting and figuring out things like the existent cultural hybridity amidst a culture that in the most covertly overt ways punishes the impure by being oblivious to their existence; the Kampala kids who don’t know what Tanuuli means, the artists who would deny they know what Tanuuli means and those artists whose life is about making a living from tanuuli– the different walks of life and the reflection of that in the music. Then receive that last mental lashing from a glance at that Ugandan music scene punishing the non genre conformists too with the exclusion and non- support against the more popular singularities of Kidandaali and Dancehall; compare the last hit song with the one that will be most popular tomorrow, against the backdrop of the plurality that you know exists in your country- the repercussions of a lack of musical diversity, then ask me those questions again.
So here is the conundrum- Who will listen? Who will understand or even want to understand? Thus the discouragement that no one will listen, that no one will understand or seek to understand what I have to say about what I see in myself and the society I live in; about what I am figuring out about love and life and the many whys.
After all I am not like others in so many ways and they are not like me. There are more differences than fundamental commonalities deduced at single observation even if we are all actually Ugandan artists. I’m seemingly forever trapped on the other side of this glass wall, where were look at each other like different animals in the same zoo, uncertain and afraid of who and what we don’t understand. No reason in trying to point out what we all have in common; our nature and something to fight for- freedom. We are all animals caged and denied our natural habitat, our particular type of wild. Some times I feel like a Polar bear explaining to lions what home is like-arctic; or like a Jelly fish explaining to Tilapia home is the salt sea and no fresh waters. I just feel so other with my art, so insecure. You don’t just up and decide the way others have the liberty to. It takes growth to put these internal struggles aside to find a solution through realities.
There’s also the bigger more intimidating and bulky reasons. The external ones. Resources- who will help? Where do I get the money I need to do this and that? To record that and innovate the other? Even then who would be willing to help and still allow me the right to artistic autonomy? Who is willing to help that would think along the lines of my artistic visions and intentions? Yes who. Because I learnt a little too late in life that you can’t do shiiit alone. One of the reasons I started this blog was to start a conversation about a situation and attract those interested in remedying that situation because they saw and understood that it was indeed a situation.
At this moment, my contribution can only be to share thoughts and point out issues, and especially to celebrate those making an effort concerning Ugandan art in whatever capacity, and in my own abilities make the most I can of what I have in the efforts to be an artist as well, having more help than most.
Let’s consider the mechanisms of our African and Ugandan culture I am immersed in- who will understand that that pursuing my art is as respectable and as noble as someone else pursuing their legal, medical and engineering career here in Africa, where apart from that you are deemed a failure? Who will understand that the place of a woman isn’t just in a home taking care of a husband and children? Therefore, who will contend for an African artist, female and otherwise, against the generation that raised them that is fast steeped in a never changing mindset about art in Africa? How will they be shown that an artist can be more than the depiction they know? How do you convince them that as an artist, their child shall not be a disappointment to reputation and community, but has the capability of the very contrary?
How about religion- I say religion and not faith because, when will we see the difference and therefore the danger of one and the blessing of the other? When and how will we remind ourselves that as religion posits the perpetuation of the same traditions and rites and customs Christians unfortunately historically suffered because of, artists in some ways today are as well sometimes suffocating under too? How do we not see the way those hard and fast rules of amorality within cultural dynamism sometimes permeate our doctrines and beliefs to form an unquestionable and undefeatable stance in religious circles so irrationally disconnected from the world we are part of? How do we show that Christians while not usually artists outside the church could be despite the past and current status quo concerning them?
So what of the other Christian fated with the burden of artistic expression? Only within the church still? His message bound to those that are like him alone? Should their message be relevant to even those outside the church? Could it be relevant to those outside the faith? What of the minds influenced and grown by the likes of Maya, Chimamanda and Nina. Am I not a woman, an African Woman, an African Woman artist just like them? Shouldn’t there surely be some sort of intersection rendered non-illusory? Wouldn’t faith be to respond to the gifts of artistry within the church with support to those who would wish to express themselves on the foundation of Christian faith and values? If a Christian can be a lawyer defending and upholding justice and not a thief and a doctor an instrument of healing and health and not a murderer, then can’t an artist too live out their faith by being a positive influencer in community, encouraging others with their gift too as the lawyers and doctors can do? How is my faith reconciled to my art?
With the requirement of education never ending- How much can I do about my art if the conventional education system I was raised and went through would have me presented with a few options for the application of the knowledge acquired through that education, to survive in this world and its systems by serving community? If for the past 20 years or so, I have spent applying my mind to a particular education that cannot just be disposed of, mustn’t I therefore hope that in some way art, music and this education can be integrated for some dualistic purpose although I didn’t study music as much as I wanted to and neither did I have the opportunity to? Mustn’t I give attention to that path as well as the to artistic that are part of the same journey therefore?
When it comes to the complexity of Human Construction- Is any one just a monolithic existence but is always instead a vibrancy of a kaleidoscopic mosaic? Am I not so many things known to me and unknown to me that affect the outcome of everything about me individually and collectively considered? Mustn’t I realize how all those things mesh into something useful for myself and others?
Once again, so many people ask me why I don’t do more with my art.
Why don’t you write more? Why don’t you sing more? Why don’t you record more? Why don’t you perform more? Why don’t you express yourself more?
It’s because of these things and others known and unknown to me. I understand some of the predicaments and obstacles, and I am also without and idea when it comes to others.
I wish to be all that I am, not some of what I am. I know that the success of that affects my quality of life immensely and my outlook and contribution to society.
I feel the difficulty and failure to attain cohesion in myself so acutely each time I think about it. I wonder if there are any others that went through this patch as artists starting out.
I positively imagine that there’s more Ugandan artists out there with their own struggle and story and some that share in aspects of my own. Like them, I am asking “then what?” And like them I’m trying to figure it out one blog entry at a time that I am able to organize my thoughts and express them in this form, for something that may one day be of use for someone else if not myself.
Like them I will not stop celebrating those out there expressing themselves despite and in spite of their struggles.

Like them I will not stop trying to find a way to make this work.
Like them I will find a way, for myself and others like us.