Nairobi — Uganda's recording music industry marked 80 years of existence in 2009, with no proper structure or homegrown professionals to put it at par with other African countries such as South Africa.

The recording industry is also faced with non-existent marketing, promotion; lack of branding, piracy, bad packaging, poor distribution, effects of globalisation and music digitalisation.

"...African music has in the past been identified with mediocrity, poor quality and bad packaging...," the jazz artiste Isaiah Katumwa told The EastAfrican.

"There aren't any top quality sound engineers in the country in the first place," one of the country's rising musicians Sarah Tshila argues, adding that, "And those that have the equipment just want to exploit musicians. Why should I learn playing an instrument when I can walk into a studio, pay money and have song recorded with digital and synthesised background music? This has been blamed for the decline in musical instrument playing."

As a result she argues, "People have not had time to put a cap on the quality of music. It's costly to maintain a band so musicians prefer to pay for studio produced music. Why go organic? Radio stations are recycling music faster and music is becoming shallow. Everybody can now sing because they can pay a few shillings in a studio without having any live band back up."

The band leader of Afrigo band, Moses Matovu, suggests: "Our young and upcoming artistes should at least learn to play a musical instrument, then we shall have original music."

Digitised compositions

"If you don't know how to play any musical instrument, how are you going to compose a song and arrange it? You will end up going to "computer producers." Eventually you will have songs without an intro, bridge, chorus and full of monotony. A good composer is the one who does 60 per cent of the song," Matovu adds.

"...Lately, the CD musicians (hip-hop artistes) in Uganda have realised they cannot be any more creative and are looking for bands to perform with. I am optimistic that live music is picking up because those who appreciate good music are realising that there is an alternative to CD musicians by paying to watch live music," Tshila observes.

"...the African recording industry goes all the way back to 1907, when records were first sold in South Africa -- at Ush2 each. The main companies were the French-owned Pathe and British-owned Zonophone. By 1914, 100,000 records a year were being sold there," John Collins in his book, African Pop Roots: The Inside Rhythms of Africa, writes.

"In East Africa, records in English and Hindi were first imported in the early 1920s. But by the late 1920s Her Majesty's Voice (HMV), Odeon, Columbia, Zonophone and Pathe were recording and releasing local African music, sang in Kiswahili, Luganda and Somali. For instance, in 1939 HMV/Zonophone sold over 200,000 records, of which 80,000 were in the vernacular languages of East Africa," Collins writes.

Ugandan recorded music began in 1929 with the British Odeon label and by the 1950s there were several labels operating in the country, recording a variety of traditional music such as The Young Baganda Singers' Party, Kibirige and Budo Party, Nanyoga and Party, and a number of school and Catholic church choirs.

Prior to commercial record companies anthropologists and musicologists had recorded traditional African before the First World War.

The first recordings of East African traditional music were by the German Carl Meinhof in 1902.

Hugh Tracey followed in the 1930s and Gehard Kubik in the 1960s, among others.

In 1956 a German, Dr. Georg von Opel opened a new pressing-plant in Kampala recording under the Tom Tom label, which later closed in 1959 due to an effective Buganda trade ban.

Thereafter, Ugandan recordings and manufacture took place mainly in Kenya throughout the 1960s to the 1980s.

The Nairobi based East African Sound Studios Ltd that was formed in 1947 used to record Ugandan music in Nsambya School hall in Kampala.

Radio Uganda Studios recorded music for playing on air but not for commercial purposes.

Local record labels, among others like Kagabe, Assanand and Sons (Uganda) Ltd, Super Sounds headed by Edgar H. Batte and Kasiwukira would later on come on the scene.

Today, there are all sorts of local record companies with most not meeting international standards -- some not able to survive after an album or single.