By Najib Mulema
East Africa’s biggest name in the music industry Diamond Platnumz is going to headline the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) charity concert which is scheduled to take place this Friday at Kololo Independence Grounds.
The Kampala City Festival has been growing bigger and better over the years, but it has been single day event. This time round, it is running for the entire weekend, starting this Friday.
It should be noted that Uganda now has close ties with the finest bongo Flava star since he moved in with Ugandan socialite Zari Hassan. They have two beautiful kids together.
However in the past weeks, the ‘zalipendwa’ hit singer has done more harm to himself when news broke that he had cheated on Ugandan socialite to the extent of siring a child with model Hamisa Mobetto.
Diamond’s confession sparked anger among Ugandan netizens who denounced him and even threatened not to attend his forthcoming show, the first in his career.
For starters, Diamond has never performed in Kampala, seen as the ultimate capital of entertainment in the region.
The Tanzanian has for the last five years been a big name in Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, etc – but failed to break thought in Uganda where a flourishing home grown music industry is dominated by artistes such as Jose Chameleone, Bebe Cool, Radio and Weasal among others.
Ugandans started to embrace Diamond’s music and indeed the project yielded fruits more than he anticipated after Zari opted to dump her late husband Ivan Semwanga for the talented singer.
Some people say Diamond could have married Zari as a strategy to help him penetrate the Ugandan market, and when he conquers the industry, he would appease himself that he had conquered the market of his rivals in the region in Chameleone and Bebe Cool.
This was supposed to be the year. The KCCA festival provided the opportune time to show what he has. He has however not helped any matters.
Chameleone and Bebe Cool must be somewhere watching how Diamond is going to do his thing in Kampala. They both know what that means to them.
Despite the good PR exhibited by KCCA team to promote their shs100 million venture, the authority is likely to face angry Ugandans who claim to be hurt on Zari’s behalf.
Those who accept the fact that Diamond is good at his game and can’t afford to miss out on the outstanding show revealed that they will be attending but under one condition; they will have to soil the singer with rotten tomatoes as a payback for his cheating habits.
Before East Africa’s power couple came to reality, Diamond had already made it big in his home country Tanzania not forgetting in Kenya, Burundi and some other countries around the globe.
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