East African music icon Jose Chameleon poses for writer and snapper Steven Tendo

Ugandan musician Joseph Mayanja’s career appears to be lined with one success after another. And he is likely to be the most popular musician in East Africa, judging by the number of albums he is churning out and the awards music lovers are nominating him for.

While he has just been declared Artiste of the Year at the second Pearl of Africa Music (PAM) Awards held at Speke Resort and Country Lodge on October 2, 2004, his Jamila song is Song of the Year. Audience favourite Jose Chameleon was not at Munyonyo to receive his awards and USh5 million donated by property magnate Sudhir Ruparelia. He was said to be on tour in Tanzania. On August 6, 2004, his album, Bei Kali, was crowned Best Foreign Album at the Kilimanjaro Premium Lager Tanzania Music Awards trouncing Kenyan E-Sir’s Nimefika, South African Makifikizolo’s Udagwanjalo, Congolese Samba Mapangala and Werason’s Ujumbe and Koyimbi Ko, respectively.

The award-winning Jamila had been permanently on the top of the charts of many television and radio stations in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda and had been nominated for Song of the Year, Best Afro Beat Single, and Video of the Year awards at PAM. Popularly known as Chameleon in music circles, Mayanja himself had, for the second time running, earned nominations for Best Male Artist, Best Afro Beat Artist and Artist of the Year.

Besides the ability to blend well into any environment by changing colours, a chameleon is painstakingly slow with measured steps while at the same time very agile and quick on its prey. These are all true with Chameleon who, 1993, gave Kawempe Muslim Secondary School its anthem when he was still in form three.

As a child, Chameleon had always wanted to be a musician and his only drawback was his age. Every time he expressed the desire to venture into music, his family and events managers would block him. His parents were against his musical passion as ‘music was only for failures in society,’ they said. It was not till he reached Form Four (11th grade) that he started exploring discos to try his luck in music. With encouragement from DJs with whom he easily established rapport, he started singing to various sound tracks.

When his mother discovered this, she likened him to a chameleon for camouflaging himself into books while doing exactly what he was advised against. It is from this incident that the 26-year-old Joseph Mayanja acquired the name Chameleon. In 1994, as a singing disco jockey, he sung at Pulsations and Missouri nightclubs. He then linked up with the management of Colline Hotel and was signed up as resident DJ getting the chance to work with then hot DJ Shanks Vivi Dee.

Chameleon started curtain-raising for big names like Lucky Dube and Buju Banton when each visited Uganda. Kalamashaka, then prolific Kiswahili rap group, soon invited him to feature in their album in Kenya. Though he came to a new environment, he linked up with Kenyan producers and events organisers like Tedd Odongo Josiah and John Nyamu, then Miss World Kenya director. Chameleon is one of the artists who entertained guests at the 1999 Miss World Kenya and The Mombasa annual Carnival, and Konyagi Spirit of Africa concert in Tanzania. When he met his girlfriend, Belgian Griet Onsea, they produced his first album, Bageya, in 1999 in Kenya.

Though Bageya is predominantly traditional Luganda folk music, Chameleon has since blended traditional folk and ragga in his subsequent releases. The album has been successful in Tanzania and Kenya despite being in Luganda. In 2001, Chameleon released his second album, Mama Mia, which got riotous reception all over East Africa.

He says he did Mama Mia in Swahili to thank his fans in Kenya and Tanzania “for receiving Bageya well despite not knowing what the Luganda lyrics mean.” In 2002, erroneously seen as one of Kenya’s top young musicians, Chameleon along with Kenyan Red San was invited to curtain-raise during Shaggy’s Boombastic Kenya tour. The year saw him do three successive songs; Njoo Karibu, Dorotia and The Golden Voice. 2003 was a streak of success for Chameleon as he ran away with Contemporary Single, Male Artiste, Artist of the Year, and Song of the Year awards during the inaugural PAM awards held at Speke Resort, Munyonyo. All the four awards were brought about by Bei Kali which is still topping the charts in most Eastern African radio stations.

In the same year Chameleon was nominated as a finalist at the KORA All Africa Music Awards for his single, Mama Mia.

Early in the year Chameleon did yet another thunderous tour in Kenya promoting his songs Bei Kali, Njoo Karibu and Dorotia where he entertained revellers on the Valentine’s Eve at the plush Safari Park Hotel, Nairobi. On the Valentine’s Day he launched the album in Mombasa. But what makes Jose Chameleon stand head out in the region crowded by numerous young artistes? Some believe it is his fusion of traditional style with modern ones. While some people favour his not-so-slow ragga beat, others only listen to the Afro-beat. Still others support his choice of language that speaks to East Africa, Kiswahili. But there is one point at which all concur: his lyrics. Unlike most of his counterparts in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, Chameleon addresses social issues with a unique truthfulness

Mama Mia, his first hit in Swahili, talks about unfaithful, opportunistic women who only stick with their family in good times and abandon them when poverty or other misfortune strikes. Bei Kali shades light on the problems faced by men who date materialistic, high-flying ‘expensive women’. Jamila sympathises with women who are mistreated, battered and divorced.

Another thing that endears Chameleon to music lovers is that his songs have no offensive language—four letter words, cursing, etc—that characterise many rap artistes. Jose Chameleon himself says it is “a question of tackling each adversarial situation at a time with due seriousness.”