Performing resistance and subversion in the songs of Madoxx Ssemanda Ssematimba

Abstract

This study examines the performance of the concepts of resistance and subversion in the songs of Madoxx Ssemanda Ssematimba, a legendary Ugandan Reggae artist. It takes interest in his lyrics as a way of analysing his engagement with the notions of resistance and subversion and their relationship to Reggae Music as a genre that is complex and multilayered and is constantly questioning institutions and establishments. The study draws on the postcolonial theory particularly focusing on Ngugi wa Thiongo’s ideas of resistance and subversion, and on performance theory with a special interest in Richard Schechner and Richard Baumann’s ideas on performance. Richard Schechner and Richard Baumann argue for the centrality of an audience and cultural conventions to performance. The study analyses the complex interplay between performer, audience, text and context and the literary elements that inform Maddoxx’s work. The study argues that Madoxx complicates the idea of the margin by deliberately composing in Luganda, a language which is not widely spoken beyond Buganda and Uganda his own centre by birth and by choice. The study further demonstrates that there is a strong link between the sense of self and local identity in Maddoxx’s songs. The issue of belonging is a constant theme in his songs and surfaces in both expected and unexpected ways. Attachment to place and the desire to belong to particular socially and culturally idealized spaces is important in the songs of Madoxx. The study also argues that Madoxx’s songs engage a multiplicity of voices that cause tension in defining who is given agency to speak and who is spoken about. The study concludes that Madoxx in his songs overturns familiar notions and reads them in unusual ways within the framework of Reggae songs. The songs imagine alternative realities and negotiate spaces for the marginalized and in so doing confront the contradictions and ambiguities that exist in society.