Uganda’s Akogo Festival is here

The festival will feature musician Daniel Okiror as the headliner alongside popular traditional Iteso groups Abarilela, Soroti Municipality, Orungo Ora Group, Kodukul Ongino, Nyero Rock Paintings Club and Atude Emaali.

These artists will deliver live performances of the musical styles from the Iteso community, which include akoogo, ekirakira, adungu, etida and atenus.

Upcoming electronic/digital artists will also be given the opportunity to perform. They include Triple J, Uncle Ben, General Fitaman, Yakobo, Mighty Bonney King and Candy Man.

Okiror, who is also the festival’s co-founder, told Music In Africa that Akogo Festival aimed to inspire young artists from the Iteso community in Soroti to embrace their indigenous roots.

“Our festival aims to create an avenue where different genres can be celebrated and showcased,” Okiror said. “Some of our young musicians have been influenced by the urban sounds playing on radio stations and being produced by Ugandan producers, but we would like them to start recording live music and forget the digital recording.”

Okiror said the indigenous music of the Iteso people was not popular in the region because no much effort had been made to popularise it.

“I remember the first time FM stations reached Soroti. I was 15 years old,” he said. “We expected that the few Teso songs would be featured but this did not happen. Instead we grew up listening to American music and other Ugandan genres.

“During that period, we had no studios in Soroti so the musicians at the time travelled to Kampala to record, which was very expensive. For those who managed to travel, the producers in Kampala did not like recording live music so they were forced to drop their traditional style and embrace the urban sounds.”

Okiror said most Iteso musicians creating urban music were yet to attain regional recognition because they were competing in a genre that wasn’t innate to them.

“You can never be better than those doing what they were born into. You have to embrace your own – that is the only way you can beat them,” he said.

The groups that will be showcasing at the event will record an album titled the Music of the Iteso Volume 1, which will be available for sale during the festival’s third edition.

For more information, visit the Akogo Festival Facebook page.