In Summary
ALL IS NOT LOST. When Tendo Tabel, popularly known as Lady Titie, pioneered the Ebbaluwa programme on Beat FM, little did she know that it would catch on and spread to other radio stations. She shares about her music and broadcast careers, and standing by her husband in really trying times
Lady Titie is sociable. Her enthusiasm is infectious, and puts one immediately at ease. With a music show in the evening, she is already dressed, but her hair needs attention. So we jump into her car, a Noah, and head to the salon.
Seeing this petite and delicate woman, it is hard to believe that for the better part of her teenage years, she woke up at 5am every day to dig during her holidays. Understandably, she hated it.
On radio
In 2006, Eddie Sendi, her music manager, told her of an open slot on Beat FM. She was skeptical. “I was not fluent in Luganda and I was not sure I would interact with the listeners. When I got the slot I told the programme manager, Bill Tibingana, that I could not do it.” Tibingana instead encouraged her and being a perfectionist, she pushed herself to meet his expectations. “Looking back, I am grateful to Sendi for pushing me into radio.”
Pioneering problem solving on radio
Back then, radio was purely for entertainment. As a popular presenter, people waited outside the studio to tell Titie their problems, seeking her intervention.
“I helped those I could until one day I changed the programme script and read someone’s problem on radio for the listeners to advise her. It was supposed to be a one-off so that I would return to the original script the next day.” It never happened that way. People began writing their problems for her to address on air. Every day she read a letter. Eventually she wrote a proposal to NBS TV to air Titie’s Show.
“In the beginning, the challenge was getting people to agree to appear on TV. Unlike now when everyone is eager to appear on the show, at that time there was a lot of stigma attached to it.”
On life
“Women should work like they will die tomorrow, and live like they will never die,” says the entertainer, whose role models are late musicians Brenda Fasie, Carol Nakimera, and Oprah Winfrey. She admires Fasie for her deep voice and wishes she could reach her notes. Titie sings mid alto yet Fasie was deep alto.
She admires Nakimera because she sang afro-pop kadongo kamu. “She was a pioneer among females in that field,” she explains.
She admires Oprah for being able to captivate an audience for more than 20years.
Titie hopes to remain relevant to her audience that long.
With changing attitudes, musicians are now celebrities but there was a time when female musicians were regarded as prostitutes. “As a rule, we wear different hairstyles and dress differently. Once, a boda boda rider taking me home from a show asked if I was too tired to sleep with him. When I told him I was not a prostitute, we laughed it off.”
Because of the skimpy clothes she had to wear at shows, Titie was scared of venturing out of her muzigo at daytime. A former radio presenter once asked for sexual favours in return for playing her music. By then, the songs were popular and she was in a position to turn him down.
Crazy beginnings
“As a teenager, I loved music,” says the PAM Awards winner. “Music was so deep in my soul; I could not sleep at night.” Not even her mother’s collection of canes could stop her.
Once, when a dance was held on a Sunday, she waited for her mother to leave for church, in vain. “I put my clothes in a sack, picked a hoe and told her I was going to dig.
In the garden, I changed clothes and hid the sack and hoe in a bush.”
She enjoyed herself so much at the club that by the time it dawned on her to go home, it was 8pm. Scared, she walked through the bush looking for the sack to change back into her digging clothes, but her mother had retrived the sack and was waiting for her back home, canes ready.
“Now, I understand her position,” she says of her mother. “I was performing well at school and she believed I could do better if only I could concentrate on studies.”
0 comments:
Post a Comment