Kranium took his biggest songs out of the way as soon as he got on stage Photo | Andrew Kaggwa
Kemar Donaldson, popularly known as Kranium, has been busy in the East the past weekend. He touched down in Nairobi on Wednesday and by Thursday he was in Kampala getting ready for his show at Lugogo Hockey Grounds. By Saturday night he was already tearing down Nairobi.
For Uganda, the man was performing here for the second time, and it was a big deal. He was coming back as a bigger artiste with a bigger catalogue to back his name. When he came to Uganda in 2018, Kranium was mainly known for songs No Body Has to Know and Can’t Believe That alongside Kanye West’s collaborator Ty Dolla $ign and WizKid.
On Friday, he was the main attraction at the Captain Morgan: Spice Takeover where the liquor brand, among other things, launched a new bottle.
Curated as a rave, it was the second of a kind since Joeboy’s early this year and both have one thing in common, Sammy Wetala and his Nduguz brand. These events are more of experiences than concerts, thus there is never a live band on stage and neither is there a clear lineup of singers. What you get are numerous DJs and amazing MCs or hypemen and women.
This particular one had probably two; Jokwiz Klean and Etania – one was for the transitions while the other was for the energy.
Then the DJs, these were really many but it was hard forgetting DJ Bryan and Lynda Ddane’s set, not for the music but for everything; the theatrics, chemistry and Etania.
At the beginning of the 2010s, an electronic dance movement started brewing in Uganda, hosting parties in warehouses, garages and at times gardens.
This gave birth to Kampala’s rave culture, which later sprouted into a three- day event along the River Nile shores in 2015. The event is what we call Nyege Nyege.
Over the years, the spirit of the rave has been growing in Kampala, but without the actual rave music.
For instance, even when Nduguz has given party lovers two experiences, none of the two raves were tailored around electronic music, which is very key to a true rave experience.
Regardless, people had fun and danced to various DJs who took to the decks. Things got really heated when Kranium’s DJ took people to a dance party with a heavy reggae catalogue.
Probably it is the time the event distinguished itself as a dancehall rave.
From ska, mento, lovers rock and ragga, he had the audience, he was even good at surprising his audiences with cultural and musical shifts. Who, for instance, cues in 2Baba’s African Queen after Chronnix’s Skankin Sweet?
When Kranium took to the stage, of course, the energy was different, with his handlers and DJ, they have mastered the art of working the crowd. On his part, he knows how to perform on a playback without making the audience feel cheated. It still feels and sounds like a performance even without a live band on stage.
Unlike various performers who show up on stage and go through songs people have never heard of, it is easy to say Kranium took some of the biggest songs out of the way early on, less than 20 minutes on stage, No Body Has to Know, Can't Believe It and We Can, and the rest of it was a man surviving on showmanship.
Kranium is not one of the Jamaican artistes you expect to hand you a revolution through his songs and lyrics, many of them are X-rated in a way and that is something you cannot escape at a performance of his.
Sometimes it is not him but his audience completing the lines and it will always land in a certain way.
Like Ya Levis’, the Jamaican artiste was bombarded by girls on stage, (not that he did not want them there, he in fact invited more), although his handlers managed to control the situation by stopping some from even getting close to the stage.
