Charles Lwanga, assistant professor of music (ethnomusicology) has won the 2025 Best Published Article prize, which is awarded by the African Studies Association for the best article published in the previous year in the Journal of African Studies Review.
By introducing the notion of Afrosonicity as an assemblage of music, tonal utterances, and other artistic idioms characterized by what Deleuze and Guattari have referred to as relations of exteriority, Lwanga’s winning article, “Watch Your Tone!: Music and Meaning in Bobi Wine’s Tugambire ku Jennifer and the Kampala Street Vendors,” aims at destabilizing the meaning of music through Euro/Western lenses. Drawing on speech act theory, he demonstrates how meaning in the song, “Tugambire ku Jennifer” (Tell Jennifer For Us) by Ugandan Afropop musician and politician, Robert Kyagulanyi (a.k.a Bobi Wine) can be imagined and understood not only through the composer’s lens, but also through the process of circulation and interpretation by the listeners.
The abstract states:
Music enhances participation in emerging democracies where the rights of association, assemblage, and the freedom of expression are suppressed by the state apparatus meant to guarantee them in the first place. Ugandan Afropop musician and politician, Robert Kyagulanya (aka Bobi Wine), composed the song “Tugambire ku Jennifer” (Tell Jennifer on Our Behalf), which articulated the social aspirations of Kampala’s street vendors. The song’s meaning does not begin and end with the composer’s intent but stretches to its effects on the listeners. Analyzing meaning through the lens of speech act theory provides an understanding of what music means when it simultaneously reflects and shapes society.
Lwanga’s winning article “Watch Your Tone!” is open access and is available online.