Yella Cultural festival made a pleasant debut at the Design Hub in March.
Earlier on, it had been communicated that the festival would be held for two days with one day at the Hub and the next at GEMS Cambridge International School.
But the programme would later change, turning the single weekend festival into two festivals spread in two different locations. The idea was to have a festival about culture curated for students happening during the first show and another one for adults on a different day.
The first one on March 11 at Design Hub was a success, though the one that took place at GEMS Cambridge on Friday was not as anticipated.
The festival had reportedly been called off by organisers, only to announce a few days to the event that it was back on. As a result, it was poorly attended and even the artistes did not give their best.
For instance, for the first edition, all artistes had time to rehearse and later perform with their bands, but for the second one, only a few came with a band.
Giovanni Kiyingi, for instance, performed solo with backing from a friend playing electric drums; Suzan Kerunen only had a bass guitarist and drummer, while others such as Ceasar only carried their acoustic guitars.
But they managed to pull off decent performances, regardless. Sad that they did not have an audience to see the performances; the artistes yet to hit the stage cheered the ones performing.
Undercover Brothers were probably the most exciting act of the day; they came all out with their band and gave it their best. Their performance showed a lot of growth since the duo left Tusker Project Fame almost four years ago.
In fact on songs such as Nsikatira, Munveko and Balikowa, they got the small audience on its feet. Other performers included Haka Mukiga, Zoe the Storyteller and different schools.
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