Jose Chameleone: How I became a star

After releasing his song Mama Mia, it got traction in Kenya but in Uganda, it wasn't popular.

Chameleone, who had been in Kenya having followed Bebe Cool who was his role model at the time, decided to return to Kampala.

According to some reports, even in Kenya Mama Mia hadn't gained that much traction because the song's beats were a mix of Kenyan traditional rhythm and dancehall, and gatekeepers (deejays and radio hosts) weren't ready to take a flyer on it. It was also written in broken Kiswahili.

The producers of the song even convinced Bebe Cool and Redsan who had worked on songs with Chameleone to join him on the project and they refused.

For the song to gain public acceptance in Kenya, a deejay friend of Chameleone was mixing at an event and encouraged him to perform it. People enjoyed it. But this came after close to almost a year since the release of the song.

When Chameleone returned to Kampala, he also noticed that the song wasn't popular at all.

He went to Ange Nior Discotheque, now Club Guvnor – with talent manager Geoffrey Chagga, and they handed a copy of the song to the deejays.

People loved it and the rest is history.

"Early 2000 I went to studio and recorded Mama Mia, the album... it first hit in Kenya... I was wondering, when I came to Uganda, it was not here," Chameleone said in an interview with Crystal Newman when she was still presenting Celeb Select on Sanyu FM.

"So, I went to Ange Noir with Chagga; we took the CD to those people... people loved the song, and it started taking off.

"Then after that, Jose Chameleone, we want you in London; Jose Chameleone, we want you in Rwanda. What could I do? I had to go."

Chameleone remains one of the biggest musicians in the country, if not the biggest.