How Philly Lutaaya became the Grinch that stole his children’s Christmas

Every December, there are nostalgic comments about the memory of Philly Bongoley Lutaaya from many households in Uganda as they remember the legend once again. As his enduring Christmas album, Merry Christmas (1987) blares through speaker after speaker for the third decade and counting, fans and those who were born long after his death marvel at the quality and depth of his music, and wonder what/how he would be singing now, had he lived beyond his 38 years!

Lutaaya has made Christmas such a joy to all – or so we assume – and even in this Covid-19 year, his songs have not failed to evoke festive feelings amidst the harrowing devastation. However, for Tezra Nakiganda Lutaaya, the Christmas frenzy has not caught her in its web.

Instead, this season is forever a stark reminder of her father, bringing back sad memories, when he suffered a painful death at the hands of HIV/Aids at a time when the disease had neither treatment nor pain relief. Those who caught it suffered a brutal death, usually within two years at most, characterized by intense pain, weight loss, and a total, unflattering transformation of one’s appearance.

Yet Lutaaya refused to fight the disease privately, making his struggles very public, giving the humiliating disease a human face, at last. This helped fight the stigma and hopelessness, contributing to a combined effort to turn Uganda’s HIV story into a global success in the 1990s.

His song, Alone (1988) was adopted as the global anthem for people living with HIV/Aids.

LOSING EVERYTHING

So, why do his children feel so empty every Christmas? As the second born, Tezra, 43, is now a mother of a five-year-old daughter and an 18-month-old son. Because of them, she has been compelled to make Christmas a big occasion for the sake of their memories, and because they have cousins that really make the season a big deal.

But beyond that, the death of her father just 10 days before Christmas simply stole every emotion she had towards the season from Tezra. When I met her at her uncle’s home on Kanjokya street in Kamwokya, she recalled how that fateful day unfolded 31 years ago.

Tezra, her older sister Jastin and younger brother Lennon were all dressed up that morning, heading out for a cousin’s birthday party when their world came crashing down. Their father was dead.

“I was 12. My sister was 13 and my brother was just eight. But our grandmother had encouraged us to pray and fast, so that God could bring healing to our father. While ordinarily, this was a practice many would consider a huge responsibility for our ages, we did it. Yet, at the end of it all, our father died,” the warm and nice Tezra, who stands about 5ft 9 inches, said.

One can only imagine how devastating this was on the three siblings, and the kind of dent it put in their faith. Their father was not just daddy; he was their mother too, their best friend and true definition of Christmas and everything it embodied.

“Daddy always made [Christmas] memorable and joyful. But you can imagine, when he left for Sweden [in the early 1980s] he left us at Namirembe road, where we stayed with our mother [Annet Nantume] and later grandmother. We joined him in the Scandinavia in 1986, only for him to pass on three years later, when we were just beginning to enjoy life,” Lennon said, when we talked on phone.

Indeed, Lutaaya paid homage to his special relationship with his children in some of his songs. Lennon, 39, lives in Sweden and is in charge of the Philly Lutaaya Estate, a company geared towards ensuring that the family secures royalties from his music, and protects it from piracy.

Although Lutaaya’s music remains timeless, sadly his family has not gained anything from it financially, because of the poor copyright laws in Uganda. The eldest of Lutaaya’s children, Jastin, 44, works as a nurse in Norway, where she has been living for many years and has a 22-year-old son, Brandon.

She has been married since 2006, but is reportedly very private and reserved, although much of this personality originated from her father’s death; she retreated into herself.

SEARCHING FOR HOME

The children had reunited with their mother, who had left them around 1984, because, according to Lennon, she was tired of being a single mother. However, when she returned to their life, it was short-lived; she died in 1994 after contracting HIV from her second marriage. Talk about double jeopardy for the trio!

At the time, they were just beginning to fit back into Uganda, having lived in Sweden for three years (they hold Swedish citizenship). Tezra and Jastin were placed in Nnaalinnya Lwantale girls’ school in Ndejje, but had to join three classes below the academic grade they had been at in Sweden.

Lennon went to Budo Junior School, where their uncle Abby Lutaaya, the former National Council of Sports (NCS) general secretary, was widely popular, having studied there. However, school life in Uganda just did not work for them. According to Tezra, in class they were three or more years older than most of their classmates.

“Certainly, this did not sit well with me, but most especially Jastin,” Tezra said.

This stirred up frustration and between 1995 and 1996, they found their way back to Sweden. Even in their spiritual home in Stockholm, settling back in was not seamless, because they had to again come down a few classes in the Swedish academic structure, for a better foundation in the system.

Meanwhile, Jastin, Tezra and Lennon did all these manoeuvres while fending for themselves and growing apart. One would think that from the name their father had built as a music icon, whatever legacy he had created would be enough to give his children a comfortable life. But alas!

“We didn’t have the opportunity to bond, because we all set off to look for a future. I moved from Sweden to London, the Netherlands and eventually settled in America to go to university,” Tezra said.

“My brother was taken in by my cousin and I would keep an eye on him through her… family was really affected because of the stress.”

She would take months without hearing from Lennon, and years without seeing him. It is Jastin she saw more often, even working out an arrangement to babysit her nephew when Brandon was born. The last three decades have been a period of emptiness and brokenness, where their daddy’s death threw them into a world that chewed them up, then spat them out.

The hardship has been clearly profound to a point that Tezra found no need listening to her late father’s music that has brought joy and healing to multitudes. His soothing voice only filled her with grief, although she has now found the strength to listen to some of the songs.

Even though she cannot pick one song over the other, Nandikwagadde from the Born in Africa album (1986) gives her a good
vibe. Pursuing a degree in filmmaking at the Eastern Connecticut State University (2002-2004) and then at Wilmington University (2007-2011) is what excited Tezra for a while, because it would provide her with the opportunity to make a documentary on her late father.

But she had to work, in order for them to get an education. Juggling work and academics, Tezra had left Sweden to study her
A-levels at the Swedish School in Twickenham, England, before continuing to the Netherlands and the USA.

She is yet to make her first film; instead, she has veered into humanitarian work, caring for HIV/Aids orphans through the Philly Lutaaya Cares foundation that she started in 2014. The foundation supports people living with HIV, organizes testing, counselling and awareness programmes.

This program has evolved into a vocational centre in Gomba, where Lutaaya was born and buried, in order to empower and skill young vulnerable people out of poverty, one factor that fuels the spread of HIV.

FINDING GOD, HOME

Tezra is back home permanently, after swinging between Kampala and Stockholm for the past six years. She feels this is what
her late father would have wanted them to do; contribute to the transformation of their motherland. For the programmes Tezra is running, it is with help of donations from friends and well-wishers, as she hopes for more sponsors.

Such is her determination to keep the light on her father’s legacy, although it is also therapy to help her heal finally. It is only recently that the three siblings have also started mending their relationship; the pain and anger of Lutaaya’s death had caused them to grow apart and go separate ways to fend for themselves.

But finding God has been Tezra’s saving grace.

“At the beginning of 2019, I got saved. That experience has since helped me realize that God never left us, a feeling we have all had since daddy died. Now I have found new purpose towards life since I developed a personal relationship with Christ,” Tezra, an old girl of Bat Valley primary school, revealed.

Meanwhile, Lennon, who is still single, studied Economy at Lötsjö Gymnasiet in Stockholm, specializing in social and healthcare work in a housing facility for the last 13 years. He at times does gigs as a chef too, because of his cooking skills acquired when he worked in a restaurant.

He has lately been focusing on digitalizing his late father’s music and translating some of his Luganda songs into English. That, he believes, will give the music a new touch and global appeal.

Perhaps, success in their latest endeavours will give the Lutaaya children the closure they crave, finally. Otherwise, Christmas is of little meaning to them, because Lutaaya went with it to his grave on that fateful day December 15, 1989.

jovi@observer.ug