The NTV News jingle, that crisp blend of modern arrangement and African tonal spirit, has become a familiar cue in Ugandan households, a national soundbite that signals attention, authority, and rhythm.
Yet, few might know that the musical mind behind it is not a corporate composer in some polished studio in Europe, but a Kampala-born multi-instrumentalist who answers to the name Walter Asiku.
Asiku, known in artistic circles as Asikuology, did not just compose a jingle. He smuggled African breath into a mainstream broadcast, placing the sound of indigenous instruments and tonal phrasing into one of the country’s most watched news programmes.
For him, it was not just work. It was cultural intervention through melody. ‘When you hear that jingle, you may not notice it immediately, but there is Africa in it, subtle, dignified, present.’
To many, it is a news intro. To Asiku, it is a quiet declaration that African sound belongs in national memory, not just in heritage museums.
Identity
Well, if music could choose its own vessel, it would choose someone like Asiku, though these days, he rarely introduces himself that way.
That is the name on his official documents, but when he meets people, he says with deliberate rhythm, almost like a chant, ‘I am Asiku. Asiku.’ The repetition feels like a declaration, reaffirmation of identity, roots, and rhythm.
And then comes his artistic identity, Asikuology. Not just a stage name, but a philosophy.
‘In school, we studied biology, chemistry, geography, every subject ended in -ology,’ he says with a quiet laugh.
‘So, I thought, if I am going to commit my life to studying sound from my own perspective, let that discipline be called Asikuology; the study of me through music.’
It sounds humorous, but there is a deeper truth there: this is a man who has chosen to make his musical journey an exploration of self, heritage, and possibility.
The restless ear
Long before he knew what pitch was, before chords were diagrams in a theory book, young Asiku had what seasoned musicians call a restless ear.
He would listen to people sing and feel discomfort ripple through him when notes went astray. ‘Someone would sing off-key and it would disturb me the whole day,’ he recalls.
He could not name what he was hearing, but he knew when something did not sit right. At just nine years old, he joined the service choir at St Francis Chapel in Makerere, a place where worship intertwined with African instrumentation.
That was where he first encountered the adungu, its curved wood and strings shimmering like a mystery. He sat close, observing more than he spoke, studying the players as though decoding a visual language.
One day, curiosity overcame caution. He reached for the adungu, and it answered. There was no formal lesson, no instructor with a pointer and a chalkboard. There was only instinct, repetition, and something like calling.
Music did not arrive in his life as a subject but as an invitation.
From hunger to destiny
When he joined Mengo Senior School, his journey found a new rhythm. Coming from a humble home, pocket money was not part of his daily reality.
During break time, when other students flocked to the canteen in a burst of noise and snacks, he found his own destination: the music room. He recollects, ‘People say I was disciplined, that I was always in the music room. The truth is, I was just broke. And that room was the only place I felt full.’
For six uninterrupted years, every break and lunchtime, Asiku returned there. What began as a necessity transformed silently into destiny. The music room became his sanctuary, a place where the world quieted enough for him to listen to himself.
Inside lay a universe of instruments: piano, bass guitar, trumpet, amadinda, endingidi, kalimba, brass band drums, adungu, ntongooli; African and Western instruments resting side by side like continents waiting to be connected.
He picked them up one by one, not collecting skills but discovering conversation partners. By the time he completed school, he could confidently play about 15 instruments, each with its own personality, demand, and spirit.
His secondary school teachers gave structure to what the teenager had already begun shaping intuitively, but much of his mastery was carved in the quiet hunger of break-time solitude.
‘A lack of pocket money is how God led me to an open destiny,’ he says, and in that single line, his story rests like sheet music on a stand.
A bridge between worlds
Today, under the name Asikuology, he stands as a musician and a bridge between worlds: the drum and the piano, folklore and jazz improvisation, ancestral rhythm and contemporary stagecraft.
His career flows through performances with the Kampala Jazz Orchestra, Makorale Choir, a Makerere University community choir composed of students, alumni and staff, and most notably, The Unbeatables Band, a group known for their exclusive commitment to instrumental jazz.
Their three-year residency at Latitude 0 Degrees Hotel helped shape Kampala’s modern jazz culture, where crowds began to identify their signature tone through the way adungu and piano conversed under his fingertips.
Asikuology reflects: ‘Jazz is freedom. But African instruments have always been free. I just let them meet.’
African sound, global stage
In 2024, he took on one of his most demanding roles yet, as a director and arranger of orchestra, then a vocalist, and navigated the delicate balance between classical form and expressive interpretation.
It was a moment that proved something powerful: African musicians are not limited to cultural showcases; they can command global repertoire with authority and innovation.
His career pulses through powerful moments, leading African instrumentation in the Navio Orchestra Experience, weaving endingidi into a viral NTV News soundtrack that reignited national appreciation for indigenous sound, performing at Orchestra in the City with Maurice Kirya, and standing on the Ubumuntu Arts Festival stage in Kigali, Rwanda, where music became not just performance, but dialogue and reconciliation.
Teaching belief, not just notes
Beyond performance, he teaches, directs choirs, coaches jazz students, trains school ensembles, and stands as an assessor with the Directorate of Industrial Training.
He has judged competitions, facilitated creative workshops, and become part of Uganda’s evolving music education landscape.
He notes:’Africa does not lack talent. It lacks confidence. I do not just teach notes, I teach belief.’
His philosophy is simple but profound; music is not just learnt but lived. And for African artistes, reclaiming sound is also reclaiming narrative.
He collaborates beyond borders, from adungu-drum improvisations with Nepalese percussionist Madan Gopal to kalimba conversations with Kenya’s Liboi, each performance an argument for African sound as an international language.
Debut album
Asiku is sculpting his debut album as a document of sonic heritage reborn through jazz harmony.
‘I do not want to release just tracks. I want to release a language, where adungu and piano improvise like equals,’ he says.
And so, the study continues. Some artistes look for fame. Others chase perfection. But Asikuology is chasing something more enduring, a return to self through sound.