Azawi Shares Secret Formula on Why She is the Best Ugandan Artist

Ugandan artist Azawi. Photo/Instagram

By Kinyua Mwangi

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Award-winning Ugandan artist Azawi has a simple formula together with fellow Ugandan artist Bebe Cool of turning around Uganda’s music industry.

The Swangz Avenue-signed singer attributes the lack of a bigger dream to a sluggish industry. She says that she has been in the industry long enough to discover that Ugandan artists are no risktakers.

Azawi implores that lack of a big dream comes with lots of comfort zones for artists and it has only worked against them.

However, the ‘Masavu’ hitmaker believes that she and Bebe Cool have a lot that fellow artists can emulate from them.

“Also most of the people in the industry, their dreams are not big. "If 90% of us were big dreamers, it would reflect in the way music is promoted, the kind of videos we shoot and the music we are releasing. But most of us are playing it safe,” she stated during an appearance at the Big Conversations podcast.

Azawi borrows lessons from Nigeria and South Africa as African musical powerhouses. Her biggest lesson is that artists from these countries do not prioritize profits over quality.

“I, for example, am the kind of person who gets 100 million and not think of putting it on a house project. Rather I’ll put it all in the music,” she remarked.

According to Azawi, it is now the responsibility of the new generation of musicians to set higher standards for both the industry and themselves.

Her last album, ‘Sankofa’ which she released in 2023 is still a huge hit. She featured popular Jamaican artist Konshens in ‘Summer Bae.’

She has also collaborated with big shots in East Africa such as Sauti Sol and Diamond Platnumz.