Picks of the Week - Charles & Frida Sonko/Navio (Uganda)

It's two Picks for the price of one today. A great Ugandan oldie and rapper Navio's remake of the song.

"Nawuliranga," by Charles & Frida Sonko with Orchestre Melo Success, appears on The Kampala Sound: 1960s Ugandan Dance Music, from 1988. The song was originally recorded in 1968.

Here's a description of the album from the French site, African Music Forum:

A lovely sampler of some rare and half-forgotten pop from mid-’60s Uganda. A poor nation, Uganda’s music industry was modest, particularly in regards to its recording facilities, which were nonexistent. Thus, most Ugandan musicians traveled to Nairobi to record, and there they were usually backed by local studio bands, who played in the Kenyan pop style. Later, the influence of Congolese guitar pop became more pronounced, and the stylistic debt is equally obvious. What makes these songs distinctive, however, is the soft, restrained vocal style, presumably an outgrowth of the Luganda language, featured on all of these tracks. Ugandan politics fell apart not long after these records were made, as did the social space that made pop music possible, and the artists featured here — Freddie Kigozi, Fred Masagazi, Charles and Frida Sonko, Billy Mbowa and others — fell into obscurity, although their music is preserved here. Good thing, too — this is a sweet little record.

Here's an update of "Nawuliranga" from Ugandan rapper, Navio (Daniel Kigozi Jr.), who takes the naggingly catchy refrain and weaves it into something altogether different, but just as much fun.