Black Motion takes House vibes to Mbarara

It is hard to imagine the last time a foreign artiste headlined a show outside Kampala. There are chances it has never happened.

Uganda’s social scene has Kampala as the capital of happiness, some even claim the city owns the number one spot for the East African region and because of this, established and up and coming foreign artistes always end up performing in Kampala.

If they leave the capital, chances are they will be on a game drive.

Yet on Saturday, this analogy seemed to flip onto itself when South African duo Black Motion took to the stage at University Inn at the second Smirnoff Fiesta in Mbarara.

The DJ duo has been going through a lot recently, involved in a messy break up that saw one half of them, Bongani Robert Mahosana, sue his founding partner Roy Thambo Mabogwane over studio vandalism.

Mahosana, alias DJ Morda, has since gone solo and Mabogwane, alias Smol, has been joined by Kabelo Koma, alias Problem Child Ten83, to keep the Black in Motion.

Although Black Motion is a DJ duo that transverse a number of dance/electronic music subgenres, they are heavily renowned for being House or Deep House DJs.

House music was created by DJs that altered disco songs to give them mechanical beats. Over the years, people have veered off and created what is known as Afro House - House music with an African touch.

It is from there that House music in the 2010s gave birth to Amapiano, a hybrid of House, Deep House, Kwaito, Jazz and Lounge music.

For a duo like Black Motion, calling them Amapiano DJs is usually insulting but above all, under-selling their brand.

The duo have an identity to what they do, they blend House music with indigenous percussions such as kongas, djembe and chamba African drums, on the same set as an electronic drum kit.

Smol takes charge of the drums while Problem Child Ten83 manages the decks. The two, however, in intervals during the routine take to the stage to entertain their audience with dances.

It is not something they usually do though, most of the time, their set is in smaller spaces such as the Boiler Room, made famous in Uganda by Nyege Nyege Festival. In fact, for their Mbarara show, it was important to recreate the Boiler Room experience, thus, a sizeable number of revellers were welcomed to the stage to dance under a well-lit canopy.

Most of these were Kampala-based influencers and socialites. Much as some of them understood the assignment, others mistook it for a selfie backdrop.

But there was more to Black Motion, in fact, to clearly understand what the duo does, you have to experience them, their power is not in scratching and looping a song over the other, but the ability to use the most anonymous sound, twerk it to get an audience dancing.

They remind you that a DJ does not have to always depend on pop culture and famous songs to have a successful set.

But again, their art was still too new for the audience, midway the performance, they switched off.

Some people seemed to mind their phones for the rest of the performance.

Other performing DJs of the night were good and many were simply basic. DJ Apeman closed the night, his performance articulated with energy that definitely invited one to join in, but besides the energy, the celebrated DJ was more of an activator than a DJ.

He was basically competing with himself and other Ugandan DJs - the race was for who was probably going to play the biggest number of hits by the end of the night.

But either way, he had a presence. One that is hard to forget.