Mitchy Isabirye manifests in poetry show

Because his show was closing the Lent season and ushering in the Easter holidays, Mitch Isabirye also known as, Mitchy, chose to end it with a poem on festive celebration meals, Sawa Musavu Zibere Sawa Musavu.
The poem talks about the process of making food on celebratory days such as Eid, Christmas and Easter; he details the fact that preparations start a day earlier and yet by the time it is 1pm, the food is not even half ready.
Sawa Musanvu Zibere Sawa Musanvu was one poem Mitchy plunked out of attendees life stories that many related to and laughed hard at when he mentioned certain things such as mothers preparing food and after all is done, they remember they need a quick shower before serving food.

“I swear, it is like he was talking about my mother,” noted one member of the audience.
Mitchy is a spoken word artist who has staged three independent shows since October 2022. He has organised his shows at the National Theatre and the last two, including that on Thursday night have been at Goethe Zentum Kampala in Kamwokya.
At first, he used the show to perform works from his debut EP, Endha.  However, with the shows that have followed, the performances aptly titled Mitchy’s Manifest, have prominently featured other spoken word artists, singers and instrumentalists, among others.
Over the subsequent shows, he has also introduced audiences to some of his older works and newer ones. 
Some of the new ones, he could have been performing them for the first time. At times he broke character when a line did not flow as intended to older ones where he seemed to forget lines.
But these were poems people had simply requested for during his set.
Poetry in Uganda has come a long way, from the early days of Rose Mbowa to modern times of Lantern Meet of Poets that introduced audiences to performers such as Surumani Manzi, Jason Ntaro and Kagayi Ngobi, among others.

Later, the collective disbanded and Ngobi went on to start Kitara Nation, which also became a platform for many young poets that were coming out of high school.
With shows such as Verse in Vac, and his own productions such as For My Negativity, The Audience Must Say Amen and No Speaking Vernacular, he managed to launch many poets, some of whom, such as Hawa Kimbugwe, have continued performing.
Mitchy is one of those who stayed around, with a number of writings and recordings, he has carved a niche. His is beyond poetry but around a new form that marries poetry and music. Some people call them sports, although many line Mitchy towards rap and hip hop.
Poetry as an art sought to communicate and through the different poets of the day, they did communicate, some of the content was civic while the rest was about daily situations such as relationships, family, religion and culture.

But what stood out was the fact that they were all delivered in a humorous way, regardless of how serious the matter was, the performer got his audience to laugh, chuckle and join in the banter.
Something that says a lot about Ugandans laughing at many of their problems, for instance, them laughing hard when Mitchy makes a wordplay of Uganda’s police brutality and homophobic tendencies with the line; “The excuse with stray bullets… I even doubt if our country is straight because they keep shooting their shot with everyone.”
But overall, it was a show that celebrated the art of poetry in the best ways possible and of course, cementing Mitchy’s place on the scene and a spoken word artist worth the title.