By Reagan Ssempijja
As the banter on social media goes, lately, Uganda is gradually reducing herself to a venue; a venue for Nigerian musicians to headline concerts.
As ardent partygoers recovered from Tiwa Savage, a week ago, another Nigerian star Oluwatobiloba Daniel Anidugbe alias Kizz Daniel graced Lugogo Cricket Oval, on August 6.
With less buzz around his show, however, it was rather unclear about whether or not Daniel would live to his hype, like his fellow countrymen and women attempted to do.
These so far include Adekunle Gold, Ayra Starr and Fire Boy, who performed a while ago at the same venue. But trust Ugandan partiers when it comes to catching a last-minute vibe. They showed up eventually.
The show, right from the beginning, was well produced.
The stage, lighting and sound were on point and this made it possible for the performances to go right.
Officially, the show was kicked off with energy-filled mixes by DJ LL to get the crowd into a party mood, and by 8:00pm, the party euphoria created had started getting more revellers thronging the venue.
Upcoming local musician Lyka was given a chance to hit the stage first, and unlike her previous performance, she delivered better with more energy and maturity.
Lyka was followed by Shakira Shakira, another rising artiste, and besides her music, her body and outfit got the crowd overly entertained.
The lineup then presented a surprise artiste – Levixone – and because the crowd was not aware of his performance at this particular show, it was such a frenzy when he stepped on stage. His stay on stage was short-lived, but quite a thrill.
Levixone raised the bar high, but Ykee Benda would match it with songs like Nkufeelinga and a few others from his Kirabo album.
The crowd resoundingly begged for more of Benda, but it was time for him to make way for Navio, who took fans into a whole different mood of fun – a groovy set of Hip Hop.
Navio was the last local performer on stage before Diamond Platnumz’s official DJ took over to get the crowd in a nail-biting mood for Kizz Daniel.
At 10:38pm, Daniel took to stage, only to be welcomed by thunderous screams of his name from the crowd. For a few seconds, he stood still, in amazement.
When Daniel started performing, it felt like he had done rehearsals with the entire crowd. It sounded like a choir. Possibly, no international artiste, in recent times, has had the crowd sing along to his music lyric by lyric, song by song, like they did with Daniel. They had prepared for him.
When he performed Pour Me Water, a song many were madly in love with, Daniel actually splashed water on a section of the crowd, and surprisingly, they enjoyed this and begged for more.
No Wahala remix featuring Tiwa Savage and 1da Banton was another impressive song.
Daniel closed the show with the crowd’s favourite – Buga – and boy did he get the crowd struck!
This song closed the night in such a style, as everyone expected, or even better.
To many, Daniel’s show lived up to its hype, and beyond. He performed for one hour, leaving the stage at 11:40pm.
