Praise God! I greet you in the name of Jesus Christ… I thank God for you who is reading this. I thank God for your life and thank you for taking a minute to read this, may you be blessed in Jesus’s name Amen!
Soo… My name is Desire Luzinda, I go by Rachel Luzinda formerly, I’m a medical assistant by profession and a musician. I’m a mother of one, 18 year old girl and just to take you back, to give you a brief of my life!
I started singing at the age of twenty one, but how did I get into the music industry you ask? Well, I had my daughter at nineteen when I was doing my S.6 and I gave birth two weeks after my examination. Now this….! I want you to picture the kind of environment and how I was being treated, but I thank God that he gave me this sort of resilience that I actually never knew I had, until today.
He gave me such a strong willed heart that if I choose to do something, I will do it against all odds, I thank HIM for that, because had it not been that kind of character, I probably wouldn’t have gone through the persecutions I have gone through and everything that I have gone through, so thank God for giving me such a strong character.
God blessed me, he blessed me! So, just to take you through what it was like in school, I was blessed that my headmaster liked me so much and he saw that I really liked to do my exam now in my heart of hearts I knew I had made a mistake getting pregnant at that age, so the only thing I knew would cover up a little bit of my mistake was for me to complete my examinations with flying colors, it’s the least I could do because I knew my whole family was very disappointed.
So I persevered, I was relegated at school, I would literally walk in school and see eyes pierce me but I had to endure. So part of that year ,that was 2004, I did home schooling, my mum used to give us pocket money because she was not around and she used to give us upkeep, I call it upkeep, that is the upkeep I kept and I remember putting it together and I got a private tutor from Makerere College, because I was by then going to Makerere High School and this teacher tutored me from home for about five months and that is from the month of April to September. I remember because we sat our exams in November.
I went back to school mid-year around August to do my mock examinations, and the stomach was so visible ,but like I said “am very strong willed”
I didn’t care about anyone that was trying to put me down, the whole school literally knew I was pregnant, and I sat for my examinations in November, towards the end of November. And then 2 weeks after my examination.. I gave birth! I gave birth to a baby girl on the 1st of December 2004.
Now having disappointed my family and living under my parent’s house, I so much wanted to make it up somewhere somehow, I didn’t want to put all the weight on my parents, so I tried to look for a job and I so much liked presenting I love being on TV, I like I love being on radio. I love entertainment basically! I would go in front of the mirror, I remember Karitas (Ugandan star) used to host the ‘SHOW TIME MAGAZINE’ so I would go in front of a mirror and literally imitate her and I saw myself as a Presenter someday I knew I would present. So I had this friend of mine who used to take me for then which where the ‘PAM AWARDS’ where musicians used to gather, I remember it used to be sponsored by WBS TV among other sponsors, so she would invite me for these launches and I would go, this was in my S.6 vacation 2005 then.
So, I walked up to Mr. Wavamuno boldly and said, “sir my name is Desire and would I like you to give me a job to do presenting” that’s how bold I was, but this man. This gentleman was so welcoming that he just smiled and greeted me, I guess he was may be surprised by the boldness like who asks for a job at a cocktail dinner honestly just like that, so may be he was a bit…so maybe he was shocked by my boldness, I don’t know.
He told me, “you know what, go to WBS and speak to my son Elvis SSekyanzi and tell him what you want to do, if he finds you fit they will give you a screen test, and if you pass it, you will get a job.” It was the best day of my life, I knew I wouldn’t fail, I had the confidence. I felt I could see a presenter in me and so that’s how I ended up on TV. I went to WBS TV and got a job and I think was there for about 2 years and that little exposure; I really wanted to do music.
When I started the University in 2005, I went to Makerere and I was having that part time presenting job at WBS Television, I started meeting musicians and people in the entertainment industry, because I wanted to sing so to me WBS was the stepping stone into the entertainment industry. Actually my very first album was sponsored by WBS TV with Fenon records, I remember they paid for a full album and that’s how I started to release my music, I released my first song in 2006 February, it didn’t do so well. My second song is actually the one that got a break through because by then people had gotten to know me, may be people knowing my name helped a bit so it wasn’t new in their ears.
2007 is when my very first song hit that was “Nokomyewo” and then I released another one right immediately after, it was “Mubiite”. Which blew up and that’s how I started my music career. I then started getting busy, I had to leave WBS TV and I got engaged in the industry and I became a full time musicians. I dropped my degree, I was doing Development Economics at Makerere and I stopped in year two. So that’s my journey. That is how I got into the entertainment industry.
As the career kept going higher and higher, came the challenges and I think at that time I was about 21 years when I became really famous. I had the hit songs and I was the new girl on the block. I was not ready for it. I was excited as well because I was doing my dream career but I think I was not mature and I didn’t have the right people around me. I was too busy to keep in the company of the right people that I needed to surround myself with and one thing I got to learn along the way is….I don’t know whether it’s in the other parts of the world but in Uganda people have the mentality that negative or positive media is publicity.
Every time something negative was written about me and it was false, I felt powerless because at some point I wanted to sue but everyone would tell me, you can’t fight the media, you can’t sue them, it’s actually good for you. It is one of the gravest mistakes I ever did and am sure am not the only one, this having been the trend people were deceived. People have been deceived and sold….we ended up trading our freedom to the media because we feel we need them more than they need us yet I would feel it’s two way because if we woke up tomorrow and said people in the lime light and said “NO ONE SHOULD WRITE ABOUT ME” the media won’t have much to talk about, yes there is a lot going around in the world but entertainment is equally important.
So I would think it’s two way but we were so deceived for so long, so most of us gave in to the false publicity, the false media, the stories and paid the price. I have seen people drawn in addictions to find solace because they can’t put up with the pressure, I was only saved by God that I have such a strong character first of all and God, that I was able to stand that I never ever indulged in any substance use to find solace but I must admit that it cost me a lot, a lot, so stories kept piling up and also we live in a world where people are competitive, it’s not bad to be competitive but when it goes overboard it is very bad, very dangerous, because there in grows jealousy, hatred, people wanna kill you people wanna frustrate your effort and people do all sorts of things when they reach that point, so in the entertainment industry, I got to learn there are people who like to… would pay for someone to have bad stories written about someone to literally kill their name and their music, you will find people paying DJs not to play your music, people paying radio presenters and you know it’s too much going on and like any business world; the entertainment Industry too has that sort of dirty stories going on…games rather, so so many stories where going on and where so negative, now to the world that, now am talking about people that are outside that realm.
People perceive these things and they do judge you basing on these stories because they do think, that is actually the truth, so to me that was the biggest challenge I ever met because, I sold my freedom for falsehood because I thought that’s how it’s done because I can’t do anything, I can’t have a voice and it kept barring me and barring me and barring me.
This very inspiring and humbling