Pride Ashaba, alias Ashaba Music, performs at a show. She is a live performer and is often accompanied by a band but also works as a solo artiste. PHOTO | PHILIP MATOGO
Pride Ashaba is a female Afro-Soul/Afro-Jazz recording artiste whose preternatural voice has seen her take Kabale and Mbarara districts by storm. On stage, she draws upon the repertoire of her skills as an acoustic guitarist and vocalist, while incorporating the spirited dances from her Kiga cultural heritage.
Ashaba Music, her stage name, is a live performer and is often accompanied by a band but also works as a solo artiste. She uses her voice as an instrument to salve and soothe the brokenhearted by channeling her pain as a survivor of domestic violence.
Indeed, her personal story takes up a notch on the tradition of musicians going through hard times to eventually arrive at fame. Yet, her story began innocently enough.
“Music, to me, was not something I thought was a money-making gift. Because, growing up, there is nothing that was imparted in me leading to my becoming a musician. I didn’t attend music classes and I didn’t know I had the gift until I was in high school,” she tells Sunday Monitor.
She adds: “I would sing and my classmates would be so excited. Then, the whole school was excited [by my singing]. We started a three-girl group called Melodies From Heaven. After university, I joined the youth choir at my church at St Luke’s in Ntinda, [Kampala].”
Every Youth Sunday, she let rip with soulful vocals. “You’re so gifted, thanks for ministering,” several congregants told her. The church’s response was resoundingly in her favour, but she just thought this was down to church folk being polite and encouraging, as is their wont.
Later, after forming a live band, she realised she had a gift and could make money from it. But not before she was put through the paces.
“Watoto Church, where I was worshipping at the time, took me through voice classes and that was my first official training in music,” she relates.
She adds: “This was when I was 25 and was promoted to the worship team from the main choir.”
She credits pastors Sheila and Graham Tugume of Watoto Church with helping hone her talents and teaching her “how to punch through the diaphragm” when summoning her voice to a perfect pitch.
“When I first went to Kabale, people could not believe it was my voice. They would pull the microphone from my mouth to prove it was me singing. That’s how far I have come vocally. I cannot sing and be ignored,” she beams.
Music versus marriage
However, Ashaba did not know she was talented when she got hitched and this affected her marriage.
“Being oblivious to the fact that I was talented meant when I was getting married, I did not give it thought. Because I have grown up, I have realised that if you do not know your calling in this world, you have no business getting married. Because it is a big clash when you figure it out on the other side and your partner is not okay with it,” she says.
“I got married when I was an accountant. That’s what I studied in school. That’s what I have a degree in. I did not get married as an artiste,” she adds.
This soon took a toll on her marriage.
“Someone who is expressive is someone who is going to prefer staying up in the night to create rather than being up during the day. Most creatives have crazy time schedules. Most creatives are alert during the night because the world is quieter than during the day,” she reveals.
“I found myself clashing with my partner more than once because at night, I would be practicing the keyboard. However, this made him feel like I was avoiding him, which was not the case. That is when I would think. That is when I would create melodies. That’s when music would come to me,” she adds.
This was also the time she was budding as an artiste.
“I was creative and I was just discovering myself. Beyond that, he was not ready for me to be appreciated by other people. He knew I was a good singer because he complimented my singing even before the marriage. He had heard me sing in church before. But he was not prepared to embrace the entire spectrum of artistry, which includes being away for rehearsals, being away for performances,” she intones.
Perplexed, she could not understand her husband’s negativity to her calling.
“Mark you, I was working with a gospel team. My band was a Christian band so we were only playing at Christian gatherings, weddings, dinners and before 9pm on a normal day. So it wasn’t as though I was in the bar or in the club playing until morning. But because he was not mentally ready to share with me the rest of the world, it meant every time I went out to sing with the band, which I owned, he harboured a certain anger or dissatisfaction with my path,” she says.
She says her husband’s dissatisfaction mutated into his rejection of her and her chosen career. This was heartbreaking, uprooting everything she knew and held dear.
“If I knew my path was music, I would not have got married at 25. I would have waited to mature and understand myself better. My husband turned violent amidst claims of infidelity,” she claims.
He reportedly accused her of sleeping around.
Life after marriage
Ashaba has risen above the ruins of her marriage and will have her maiden concert in Mbarara City in early September. Having conquered Kabale, she is spreading her wings. In the past, she has performed in Kigali and Nairobi. Earlier, she launched her Fireflies/ Nyonyozi album at Alliance Francaise in June, last year.
As a result, her fan base is growing.
“Ashaba Music is a class apart. She engages with her audience uniquely, tries to make it as interactive as possible..talks about her stories behind her creativity, which takes that to a whole new level. There is surely beauty in her artistry,” says Phyllis Byengoma of Arcadia Lodges Uganda.
Ashaba is surely looking within, summoning forth a future enkindling her path to the top.
