‘I knew my dad [Alex Mukulu] firsthand because we were very close. He was my best friend. And, I also knew him as one who worked so hard. And he always told me, ‘creativity takes courage.’
Dad has been known for his wit, grace, and immense talent. He was a certified force of nature who single-handedly turned the Ugandan stage, sometimes into a national courtroom, a confessional book, and a musical masterpiece. But to me, he was simply ‘daddy’.
As the curtain falls on his final act, we remember a giant who looked at a country wrestling with its complex political history, and decided that the most logical response was to write a masterpiece about bananas. He did not just write scripts. He orchestrated social revolutions disguised as Sunday afternoon entertainment.
My dad was known simultaneously to be Uganda’s sharpest conscience, its most melodic satirist, and its ultimate patriarch. As a playwright, daddy did not make comfortable art, we all know. While other writers penned polite plays, he gave us 30 years of Bananas. He brilliantly used a refugee protagonist to hand us a mirror to look at our absurdities, proving that if you cannot laugh at the challenges that you face, you have not fully understood the script.
From Muzukulu wa Kabangala to Wounds of Africa, his pen was sharper than a double-edged spear. He gave a standing ovation to truth, even when truth was trying to hide from you in dark places, or from all of us.
As a strong writer and creative, he orchestrated the chaos. Sometimes it was beautiful chaos, sometimes it was mind-boggling. My dad did not just put actors on a stage. He gave us, collectively, a collective rhythm. He understood that a nation’s pain was not just a nation’s, but individual. Let it be personal or as a community, is best sung aloud.
We have heard from artists who sing about broken hearts, failed marriages, losing a child, how they write them through their song, and they communicate their pain, and we resonate. That is the masterpiece of being a creator. And its contradictions are best exposed through song and dance. When he took to the stage for the CHOGM opening ceremony, he did not just entertain Queen Elizabeth II. He gave the British monarchy a masterclass in African storytelling that they absolutely did not see coming.
My daddy was known as the critic, the king of the uncomfortable truth. We must honour his legendary, unapologetic blandness, not forgetting his humour. He always made me laugh.
If you walked onto my daddy’s stage without discipline or timing, you were met with a critic that could dismantle your entire career in under 10 words. He famously shook up modern TV by telling a less-than-stellar talent contestant exactly where they lacked, and it rocked the nation, in a good and in a bad way. He held the artistic world to an impossible standard because he knew Ugandan talent was too good to be mediocre.
And my dad, as a director at home, behind the heavy theatrical curtains, my dad as a fiery director and the brilliant musical composer, was my daddy. Balancing the chaotic scheme of a creative genius with the responsibilities of raising us and sourcing funds as you know what creatives go through, it is an unaccredited art of form in itself.
While he spent decades directing Uganda’s finest artists on how to move across the stage, his greatest production was us, his children. He raised us with the same fierce independence, uncompromising integrity and sharp wit that he gave to the world.
Rest well, maestro. You threatened to pack up and go to Bogota for years whenever Uganda irritated you. We are just sorry you finally took that long-distance flight. The National Theatre will be a lot quieter without you. A lot more polite and infinitely less interesting without you. Hope, as all creatives, I know we shall surely and we can rise.
Rest well, papa.