The experiences of a traditional wedding Mcee ‘Omwogezi w’emikolo’

By Claire Balungi

Being a traditional wedding emcee (omwogezi w’emikolo) is a calling to embody the father of a bride at a traditional function. One has to conduct themselves as a father would, if he received guests interested in his daughter’s hand in marriage. This imitation guides and develops the emcee’s character and poise at a Kwanjula.

Having been in the industry for over seventeen years, Swaleh Kiswiriri has had to negotiate the barriers and corners of traditional wedding emceeing. His interest stretches as far back to school where he says his passion for debate gave him a platform to chair meetings and pushed him to take on the mantle to lead in speech. No meeting was safe from his contribution, he says, as he lets us in on the experiences;

Using your experience, how does one learn to be able to speak able among so many people without breaking a sweat?

Swaleh: Three things

1.Strength

There is a hormone called adrenaline. When one decides to speak among people, it pours into their blood and brings fear- your voice could even get shaky.

Due to my debating background, that hormone had nothing on me.

2. Admiration for those who spoke at traditional wedding functions

I picked interest and started to learn how to go about each stage of the function. I crammed the words and got more confident.

3. The zeal to practise.

In this era, most people’s zeal is exhibited in allowing to get trained or act as messenger (katumwa). You get to understand who is coming next at a function. I did not necessarily have to do that but I picked tipswhenever I could, through practice.

What motivates the emcees to learn to speak at functions?

Swaleh:

1. Respect

You admire to be accorded respect as a father so you start to imitate that by being prideful and speaking rather respectfully as a father, which draws people’s attention.

2. It is an income-generating activity

There is currently a shortage of jobs but there are a number of traditional functions taking place, one can decide to do emceeing. The many functions happeningdraw people’s attention towards emceeing.

3. The need to professionalize the arrangement to speak at functions is a catalyst to people’s desire to gain experience and their interest in promoting culture.Associations are formed and aspiring emcees recruited and trained to speak at traditional wedding functions.The associations rely a lot on culture so they can fulfil the wedding cultural norms.

Is there a particular school one can attend and pay a particular amount to become an emcee?

Swaleh: There is not yet an organized commitment to set up meaningful schools. The industry is still at a local level. Youths who admire to become emcees are quite the numberyet families who arrange functions want famous emcees who have most probably been at it for long. A famous emcee shall want to do all his functions on his own so his name remains upheld. Even if he decided to train people, he won’t take them to functions to perform practically. Although internally, at a local level, people are setting up small clubs/associations to drive this agenda. Usually the young gents assist as entertainers or messengers in the background at functions andlearn.

Why the association formation?

Swaleh: Due to competition by emcees at functions as they tried to show off their best skills usually by punishing the groom’s side, say by asking the groom and his escorts to kneel when they arrived late, functions got spoilt and time was wasted.

People then started to form groups/associations; when one emcee lands a tender to work at a function, they provide another emcee with whom they’d work well together and be in synch throughout the function. They make sure to keep time, share the payment in peace and strive not to complicate the function.

How are you able to set the price as an emcee and how much do emcees usually charge?

Swaleh: When it comes to payments, it depends on the family you’re going to work with but it does range between Shs 1mand Shs 300k. The status of the family and size of the function is a great guiding factor as we set the price.

The kind of entertainment that the family wants in the function is also a great determinant.

At the moment, there are emcees who come with a public address system. That definitely makes it more expensive.

Can families do without emcees at functions?

Swaleh: Usually families require resource contributions to set their functions in motion. When it so happens that families are searching for money, some family members or friends who have confidence to speak at other functions such as funerals and church impose themselves on the role of emceeing the traditional wedding as a contribution instead of giving money. These downgrade the better-knowing emcees of introduction functions and in most cases end up destroying the function.

The challenging part is that the love for money gets some people jealous as they wonder why the money is not going to them as emcees eveb though they are not well suited for the role. They then speak ill of emcees forcing families to do away with real emceeing.

What are some of the challenges you face?

Some people who arrange functions haven’t been at functions themselves. Striving to help them understand that a function requires emcees might gettiresome.

When emcees are not in association; Some emcees get too dramatic and end up wasting time especially on the bride’s side. They ask the man’s side to pay fines, kneel and walk on your knees as they come to the bride’s sideand punish them in more ways than one. In the end, such an emcee challenges the emcee on the groom’s side, wastes their time and spoils the flow of the function

How are you able to synch conversations as emcees from both the bride and groom’s side?

Swaleh: The groom’s side has to be submissive to the bride’s.

If anything, you can even go and sweet talk the brides side through the emcee before the function, you could tell him about the weaknesses of the groom and his escorts– for instance if they don’t have envelopes of fines or their desire to keep the function short and simple. That private pre-talk helps the synching of conversation. As emcee, you have to either come early and do that or get the contact of the emcee on the bride’s side and speak before the function.

Where do you see the emcee industry in years to come?

Swaleh: According to me, this industry shall continue

1. Copy the western culture which dilutes the African culture that’s meant to be upheld at traditional introduction functions. Emcees themselves have the arrangement, for instance, that western music should entertain people other than tunes from the African musical instruments such as drums, adungu, embaire (xylophones).

2. The words of conversation between emcees are now getting too dramatic- At a point, people shall not recognize the point in having emcees for this kind of event. Comedy such as… a long time ago there was a culture of okutta omukago – eating coffee seeds and taking water- those coffee seeds were called entabaluganda. Today if you find born-again Christians, they shall claim that coffee seeds are demonic. That sort of drama eradicates original culture and people have instead considered using groundnut seeds yet they want to make the function interesting and fulfil the culture of entabaluganda.

3. The element of money– The famous emcees are so expensive. Most families are not into funding expensive budgets for emceeing, they’d rather handle that part internally by picking on say a family member who is known for speaking at family funerals. This shall make people shun a good emceeing role and do it on their own and in the long run destroys the industry.

4. There is hardly the promise of sustainability in this industry. Trends shift quite fast. We’re in an era of wanna-being. Any copied thing is integrated with new tricks and the original product is destroyed. There is no sustainability. If one is a great emcee, a moment shall come when they can no longer speak at functions. While I was studying at Bishop Senior School, we had a Luganda teacher called Sewanonda. He was conversant with the Luganda proverbial sayings, which gave him a high stake at speaking at traditional functions. In a few years, he’s no where to be found. The industry has no security.

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