Lil Pazo shares a story about the genesis of his hit song “Enkudi.” After a performance in Kiboga, he and fellow artist Topic Kasente found themselves lodging in a place called Bukwiri.
It was 4 am when Lil Pazo’s sleep was interrupted by the sound of music playing from a speaker outside their lodge.
The tunes were catchy, but what caught his attention was the source – they were songs from TikTok artists like Tom Dee and Kid Dee, not mainstream musicians. He woke up Topic Kasente, telling him to listen to the music that was being enjoyed by the local youths.
Lil Pazo realized that the music scene had shifted dramatically. The audience he once sang for in 2016 had grown up; some had even left the country or settled down with families. The younger generation, with their different tastes and preferences, had become the new target market.
“I had to change my sound and fit their market,” Pazo said. He understood that to stay relevant, he needed to evolve his music style.
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He then went back to the studio, determined to create something that can relate with the new generation of listeners.
Lil Pazo began crafting what would become “Enkudi.” He shifted his focus from the meaningful, traditional themes that characterized his earlier work to something that would appeal more directly to the tastes of the younger audience.
He said all this while appearing on Galaxy FM with DJ Nimrod, Evelyn Mic, and Little Joe, as he shared his insights on the evolving music tastes in Uganda.
He noted that the Ugandan audience no longer craves deeply meaningful music as much as they used to. Instead, they are drawn to more entertaining and trendy sounds, a trend driven largely by platforms like TikTok.
“Ugandans don’t want to listen to meaningful music anymore, and if you focus on only that, they will forget you,” he explained.
