Mwana Mama was launched by Elvis D. in Uganda shortly before COVID-19 lockdowns. Recording will resume in the near future. While primarily a home-based studio in the capital city of Kampala, which offers Elvis increased opportunity for business and a safer environment for his gear as compared to a rural refugee settlement, Mwana Mama is flexibly designed and can be mobilized for field-based recordings.
“Mwana Mama” is a Bantu phrase that means Sons of Mom.
According to Elvis:
“The concept of Mwana Mama rests on the foundation of African love and oneness. We are all children of our mother Africa – children of the soil. For this inevitable fact, we are obliged to help each other in all ways that we can in order to uplift each other’s lives and to create a better Africa that we can proudly call our own.
“Imagine an Africa where we love each other like we are born from the same womb… imagine Africans standing up to help their own vulnerable… imagine an Africa that is a true global inspiration of positive change through love and then imagine passing on this knowledge to every generation that comes after. All of this is possible through Mwana Mama.”
Uganda is one of a limited number of countries that allows refugees to move around freely and start small businesses and the city of Kampala is home to many urban refugees. Since earning his opportunity to attend university on scholarship, Elvis has mostly lived outside of the Rwamwanja settlement. With his mobile-friendly setup, Elvis plans on recording both urban and camp-based refugees, musicians from other marginalized populations, plus, of course, his business-sustaining, full-price-paying clientele.
Elvis knows firsthand about the power of music to help with the pain caused by the trauma that typically accompanies the refugee experience. It’s one of the main reasons he plays music himself. With Mwana Mama, he hopes to bring this healing power to many others.
A good friend of Elvis’, from their shared days in the Rwamwanja refugee settlement, occasionally works as professional record producer in a high-end Kampala studio. This friend will produce many of the early works recorded at Mwana Mama and will train others to become employable as audio engineers.
