Sophie Gombya Reveals Shocking Details On What’s Eating Up Uganda Musicians Association.

Since singer Sophie Gombya stepped down from the presidency of the Uganda Musicians Association (UMA) on a verge to reclaim a political seat in Kampala Central, a number of controversies have been evident and given a stepping stone to new leaders.

The former vice president to Gombya, Wycliffe Tugume commonly known by his stage name, Ykee Benda, took up the position. Before he enjoyed the warmth of the seat, he announced step down following a series of verbal exchanges in the musician association.

Just a snippet of this, Gombya attributed Ykee Benda’s leave from office to disparagement. In an interview, Gombya was quoted to have said that the predecessor was never contented with the fact that she was still being referred to as the president in lieu of him. However, Ykee Benda in response to this said that he holds no tinge of respect for Gombya basing it on the fact that she crossed the lines.  This gave rise to singer, Cinderella Sanyu aka Cindy as the interim president.

That written, Gombya told Record FM 97.7 in an interview that what has always eaten up UMA is nothing but poverty of artists. “Artists are poor. It is such disgusting and brings their image down but that’s the truth. Poverty has hit us so deeper to a point that we have forgotten our dignity and taken up a beggarly life. Every one pulls toward their side. Brokenness and need for survival have really dragged the Association down,” she explained.

Solution to this, Gombya proposes that government opens up musical events so that artists can get back to their working spaces and stop lamenting about anything and everything. “The government needs to open up musical events in order to put an end to internal conflicts within the Association. There are a lot of other challenges that artists are suffering from like stigma that not only haunts them psychologically but also leads them to despair,” Gombya suggested.

Gombya, who attends to a fast foods and juice hub within the city centre, advised artists to also take up such initiatives to support them when music can’t. “Artists live a showbiz life which ends up influencing them not to do side jobs. They should learn a lesson in this period and try to invest so much in essential businesses,” advised Gombya.

She implored all artists to support Cindy and forget the whole theory of fighting for the cake singly. She said that, “The Association is not Cindy’s but for musicians. We need to work altogether like white ants and take her for the head ant so we can achieve bigger. I have met with Cindy several times on a one on one and she is a good leader. The only challenge she has is that she stepped into power when the situation artists are living in is quite unpleasant. People are hungry and as a result forget the whole concept of humanity and do some things that one wouldn’t have done.”