ENTERTAINMENT NEWS

BACK: Munyenga says she is not a one-hit-wonder.

Ugandan female singer, Winnie Munyenga is back and she is mad at folks who have branded her a 'one-hit-wonder'. "I am not a part-timer. I hope to outlive Tina Turner," she lashed out recently adding that music was not about the PAM awards but the other way round. To prove these faultfinders wrong, Munyenga is set to release Tonkaadiya, her second album this year.

The singer gave a select group comprising the media and her musical peers a foretaste of the new album's six tracks at a listening party she threw at Sabrina's Pub last Thursday. The voluptuous singer explained away her yearlong hiatus as time she had taken off to set her businesses on course.

Munyenga merchandises cell phones but has now branched out into importation of first rate used goods. She took time off to go to the studio and she is no longer singing about a lovelorn mistress yearning for more quality time from her married lover like she did on her first single Sasira, the title track off her first album released in June 2004. Nor is she according any male high-praise like she did on her other most notable hit Super Man.

Munyenga now sounds like a crusader of the liberated women's movement. She also sports a curly hairdo like the one Beyonce wore in Austin Powers in Gold Member. This time, she tells her lover to stop insulting her on Nkoye Okunvumavuma, a song that talks about those moments when marital bliss begins to ebb. Mulamu Wange explores the harm pesky in-laws can do to a marriage while Omulembe gw'Abakyaala urges women to supplement their husbands' breadwinning duties. She rounds off the set with Tonkaadiya, the title track; Sorry To Say Goodbye and the cheeky Twagala Bavu (abagagga tukuula bakuule) a song on which she makes a case for "detoothers"- parasitic ladies who sponge off well-heeled men.

Munyenga has tried to polish the flaws that made us relegate her last album to "least listened to" status owing to its lack of substance beyond the Sasira and Super Man tracks. You get a more varied sound on her album, which samples rumba, reggae and soukouss styles. She also gets a little help from her saxophone-playing dad, Martin Munyenga who flavours some tracks with the breezy wind instrument. Talents like Jeckaki Band's solo guitarist Aziz Kaki give the album a warm live feel. Munyenga sounds solid on every song and this album will definitely sell thanks in part to the varied producers on this release who include Jude Mugerwa, Paddy Kayiwa, Henry Kiwuuwa and David Mukalazi. Hopefully, this time her critics will pay attention to her message-laden songs and not her notoriously skimpy outfits.

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