She said what a lot of fans have been thinking but nobody in the industry wanted to say out loud. Ugandan media personality Prima Kadarshi recently went on TikTok Live and delivered a pointed critique of the local music scene, arguing that poor concert attendance is not a mystery, it is a direct consequence of artists offering nothing new to the people who once packed their shows.
Same Stage, Same Songs, Same Result
Kadarshi’s argument is not complicated, and that’s precisely what makes it so hard to dismiss. According to her, Ugandan musicians have settled into a pattern: familiar stage setups, predictable song sequences, and concepts that audiences have seen so many times they could map out the show before stepping through the door. When an experience becomes that predictable, spending money on it stops feeling like a night out and starts feeling like a chore.
She was direct about where she stands personally. “I woke up one day and decided I won’t go back to Ugandan events,” she said during the live session, adding that she no longer carries any fear of missing out. For someone with a platform and an obvious love for entertainment, that is a remarkable thing to admit, and it lands harder because of it.
A Friend Saying What Others Won’t
What gives Kadarshi’s critique a different texture from ordinary social media complaining is the affection beneath it. She made clear that many of the artists she was addressing are her friends, and that context matters. This was not a takedown. It was, by her own framing, the kind of honest conversation that should happen between people who genuinely care about each other’s success.
“They are my friends so if I can’t tell them, who will?” she said. “It seems people fear telling them the truth.” That line cuts to something real in entertainment circles everywhere: the closer you are to talent, the harder it becomes to tell them when something isn’t working. Entourages protect egos. Industry insiders protect relationships. And in the silence, problems compound until they show up as empty seats.
Her comments, which you can read more about in the original report from Mbu, have triggered a wider conversation about what Ugandan artists actually owe their audiences in 2026.
The Economics of Boredom
There is a financial reality sitting underneath this cultural critique. Concert tickets, transport, food, and the general cost of a night out add up fast. Fans weigh that investment against the experience they expect to receive. When the experience has become predictable, the calculation tips toward staying home. Streaming a favourite song costs nothing. Watching a live show that offers no surprises costs both time and money.
This is not a uniquely Ugandan problem. Music industries across the continent and the world have grappled with declining live event attendance as production costs rise and audiences grow more selective. But the solution is always the same: give people something they could not have anticipated. A surprise guest. A new visual concept. A reimagined set list. Something that breaks the comfortable loop and reminds the audience why live music exists in the first place.
What Innovation Actually Looks Like
Innovation in live performance does not necessarily mean a stadium budget. It means intention. Artists who study their audiences, who experiment with the order and arrangement of their sets, who invest in storytelling between songs, these are the performers who tend to build loyal concert-going communities over time. The artists who treat each show as a copy of the last one gradually train their fans to expect less, and eventually, to expect nothing at all.
Kadarshi’s critique suggests that Ugandan artists have, in too many cases, drifted toward the latter. The repetitive stage concepts she described are a symptom of a deeper creative complacency, one that fans have noticed even if the artists themselves have not fully reckoned with it.
The Mirror the Industry Needed
Sometimes the most useful thing a critic can do is state the obvious with enough clarity that it can no longer be ignored. Kadarshi did that. She holds no institutional authority over Uganda’s music industry, but she holds something arguably more valuable right now: the trust of an audience that has already made the same calculation she did and quietly stopped showing up.
If Ugandan artists want full venues again, the path forward is not better marketing or louder promotions. It is the harder work of reinvention, of approaching each show as an opportunity to surprise rather than a contractual obligation to fulfill. Fans are not asking for perfection. They are asking for effort, creativity, and the sense that the person on stage actually wants to give them something worth remembering.
So here is the question worth sitting with: if a loyal friend with a platform and genuine affection for the industry is saying the shows have become boring, what would it take for Uganda’s artists to finally listen?
