Thirteen Years on the Street, Then a Grammy Nod

Eddy Kenzo, born Edrisah Kenzo Musuuza, was 34 when CNN interviewed him in February 2024. He told the broadcaster that he spent 13 years of his early life sleeping on the streets of Uganda. He described himself as a child who did not have anyone to take care of him. Sport and music, the article says, became his way out: football offered a path, and music was a lifeline. He has said he danced on the street as a child and that his music is for joy, drawing on past suffering.

He always knew he would make it in music, he said, because he could feel the creativity in him. Before he had access to a studio, he composed songs over other people's beats. He began in 2007 and says he made it in 2008, and his breakthrough came in 2010 with the song Stamina, which trended for more than two years and became the theme song of the 2011 election campaign. He says it changed his story, bringing him money, a better house, more friends and his first flights.

Today he runs a record label, Big Talent Entertainment, which promotes emerging Ugandan artists, and he is interim president of the Uganda National Musicians Federation, where he advocates for fair royalties and digital copyright.

In 2024 he became the first Ugandan musician nominated for a Grammy, for Gimme Love, a collaboration with the American artist Matt B. The link began when a man named Greg, who had seen children dancing to Kenzo's music online, asked to remix one of his songs for a children's album. Greg then introduced him to Grammy representatives and to Matt B, who chose a beat Kenzo played from his phone. Kenzo said he could not stop crying at the ceremony. Asked about his past, he said he wanted to choose to be better, not bitter, and that he hopes to see a generation do far better than him.