Ragga Dee names 6 artistes he helped kickstart music careers

"I want to say this before I die," said Dee, real name Daniel Kazibwe -- in a video seen by this reporter. "I don't want people to speak when I'm dead. When you look at a singer like Iryn Namubiru, I saw her singing a birthday song and I could tell that she is a singer. And I said, this girl should be a star, and I enrolled her into my group called Da Hommies."

He said he later realised that his group was going to swallow her up, so they teamed her up with Juliana Kanyomozi to create I-Jay.

"When I saw Chameleone, he was very talented," said Dee who said he met Jose Chameleone when he was in a duo. "Chameleone was trying everything but none understood what he was trying to do."

According to Ragga Dee, Chameleone was singing with someone called Benazo who has since relocated to the U.S. The Digida hitmaker was introduced to the duo by one Sande who lived in Kawempe, Chameleone's place of birth.

Dee met Bebe Cool while he was also in a duo with Rude Boy Divo (spelling to be confirmed). He had gone to perform at their school.

Ragga Dee took them to his studio and teamed up with Messe Bontwe to record for them a song.

He also took on Pia Pounds when he found her singing a birthday song. She was 14 and helped her record her first song.

He also said that he pushed Azawi to start singing her own songs when she was still backing him up. He later introduced her to Viboyo, a singer and producer under Swangz Avenue.

Who is Ragga Dee?

Ragga Dee was born in 1973 to George William Kyeyune and he started his music career in 1988.

He gained fame in the early 1990s with hits like Bamusakata and Mukwano while part of a group called Da Hommies.

Dee went to Buganda Road Primary School, St. Henry's College Kitovu (SHACK), studied business at Makerere University (undergraduate), Tenesse Valley University in Atlanta and Elephant & Castle Business School in London.

He picked interest in music while still in primary school and in one of the family tours to London during holidays, he got hooked to a TV program Top of the Pops, which was a comprehensive compilation of some of the most famous songs recorded by several renowned musicians and singers from around the world.

This inspired him to start singing.

He teamed up with Messe Bontwe and some other two chaps to form Da Hommies. He told them they should come up with dancehall songs unlike Kadongo Kamu and Lingala, the popular genres at the time

They released Bamusakata in the early 90s and it became a hit.

At this point, he was at SHACK as an entertainment prefect and he would get permission to go out because he used to teach notation to Masaka Diocese Choir. He would use this opportunity to leave Masaka and come to Kampala.

He befriended DJ Berry who introduced him to deejaying, and they started working together. One day. they hosted a show at Sheraton Hotel Kampala and he was featured in newspapers yet on the day of the show he was supposed to be in school.

His father came and warned him against music until he finished. At the same time, DJ Berry told him they had got a German promoter who wanted them to start singing. DJ Berry was popular at the time and he had just come from Germany.

To get permission out of school, Dee became a goalkeeper at school. This offered time to get out of school and record music. Then he met Charlie Lubega [the owner of Club Guvnor] who was still in school and owned a mobile disco and he hired him to become his official emcee.

In S.4 vacation, he joined Sanyu FM shortly after launching. He was also working with Ange Noir. He also worked with Dembe FM.

After university in the U.S., where he spent four years, he was in the U.K. for six years working with a club and he would promote shows, take musicians from Uganda to the U.K., etc.

Ragga Dee remains an influential figure in the entertainment industry.