Know your celeb: Meet Grace Nakimera

Born on February 2, 1985 to Rose Nabulya and David Kalema, Grace Nakimera went to St. Kizito Namasuba, Bat Valley Primary School, then Old Kampala S.S and dropped out in S.3 due to financial reasons.

He father died when she was three and her mother raised them as a single mom.

At some point, she stayed with her step-grandmother, but things got tough as she would go some nights without eating so she left to pay her own rent when she was in high school.

Since it was hard to work and study at the same time, she decided to drop out of school.

At the time she was going to a church where she met a Kenyan lady who took her to Nairobi to study hairdressing.

When she came back, she worked in people's salons for a bit, then her brother JuJu who was a deejay in Rwanda called her to sing in a music band that would sing at Hôtel des Mille Collines in Kigali, Rwanda and she would be paid $100 every weekend.

It’s this money that she used to start the Wandegeya salon.

It’s while at the second salon that JuJu convinced her to take her music career seriously and leave the salon business to their mother.

She had sang a song called Ani akumanyi with Gatimo and Paragon. Juju took her to producer Henry Kiwuwa of No End Entertainment and they worked on Anfukula, which was her breakthrough

She followed it with Kiva Kuki, Nvawo Nawe and many other great songs. Grace Nakimera, who is now a gospel singer, is also involved in real estate business.