Bobi Wine: The Man Who Bought The First Escalade In East Africa!
Written by Editor on February 12, 2021
Bobi Wine (real name Robert Ssentamu Kyagulanyi) is a musician from Uganda. He went to Makerere University in Kampala, started making music in the early 2000s. His music career as an afrobeats and dancehall singer took off in the early 2000s with national hits like ‘Akagoma’ and ‘Funtula’ and he achieved international recognition thanks to a spot on Disney’s Queen of Katwe soundtrack in 2016 with the song ‘Kiwaanyi’.
His first singles were Akagoma, Funtula and Sunda (featuring Ziggy D), which brought Wine into the limelight. He was previously part of the group Fire Base Crew.Later he formed a new group Ghetto Republic of Uganja, which he leads.
His music career began in the late 1990s however due to limited funds, it took him long to make a point as he had earlier anticipated.
Wine, like many other top Ugandan artists, is greatly loved, and his music is greatly embraced at the grass-roots level and he has been praised for singing meaningful music.
He has had quite a number of conflicts with the famous Bebe Cool and Chameleone. He is associated with other musicians like Buchaman and Nubian Li who have sung alongside him in various productions.
Wine is also a movie actor, mainly starring in a few local movies commonly known as Binayugandda. He is well known for his love of cars and has quite a fleet of them, including the famous American SUV the Escalade.
Bobi Wine is also associated with a famous TV show that is filmed at his plush lake-view mansion. He has recently released a brand new song entitled “Dilemma” starring Mr.G, Cindy, and Wine himself. In 2002 Bobi wine released a single titled Akagoma.
From then up to date, he has never looked back and he has continuously released mega hits for his die-hard fans.
When Bobi Wine was 26, he bought a brand-new Cadillac Escalade with spinning 24-inch rims. He was already a major star in Uganda, and the car, he says, was the first Escalade sold in all of East Africa. Wine’s music is a sunny blend of Jamaican dancehall and a local Afrobeat style called kidandali, but his persona back then was pure hip-hop. Local media reveled in tales of his trysts with various women and beef with fellow stars.
All this has only elevated Wine’s stature, not just in Uganda, but across Africa. Legendary South African pop star Yvonne Chaka Chaka called Wine “My Nelson Mandela in Uganda,” a comparison that, while slightly hyperbolic, is not totally off-base. People Power, which thus far is not aligned with a single party, has brought the young and the poor into the political arena. In a country where nearly 70 percent of the population is under 25 and poverty is the norm, Museveni has reason to be concerned.
