Ugandan violinist Allan Watson Waswa releases 8 track album titled In My Dreams

About Allan Watson Waswa

Allan Watson Waswa is a Ugandan violinist, actor and author. He started playing with an isntrumental band called The Tabs Ug in Kampala, Uganda in 2016, playing at festivals like Stonefest in Jinja in 2017 and Milege World Music Festival in Entebbe in 2016 and 2017. The band also played cooperate events, private parties, weddings and all sorts of events.

Watson's debut violin recording, The Harvest featuring The Tabs Ug was used as a sountrack in a Ugandan movie called Ebirooto. His debut album, an instrumental album, is about mix of his nostalgic childhood memories and the challenges in his adult life, all the while exploring the much unpopular sounds of western Uganda where he hails. He got his inspiration to play the violin when he first listened to Dixie Chick's 1999 single Cowboy Take Me Away in 2003. As he lived in a country where the violin was an exotic instrument, he never got the instrument until after 14 years when he travelled to Kampala and bumped into a shop selling violins on Jinja Road. His style is however not country, or bluegrass fiddling like The Chicks', he instead freewheels around different genres.

About the Album

In My Dreams is an 8-track instrumental digital album by recorded and produced Allan Watson Waswa as his debut solo release and production. The songs on the album were composed from 2014 to 2020 by Watson himself and are all a reminder of his life growing up in western Uganda. It is made up of songs about love, hear break, traditional cultures, loss and inspiration all laced with different western Uganda traditional dances Ekitaguriro from Ankore and Ekizino from Kigezi. Other dances forexample the Kinyarwanda dance with the swaying of the arms in the air and the South African kwaito dances can be heard on The Harvest. Erizooba Nindaara Neiwe, a song about finally getting to spend a night with the crush of your life takes a more afrobeat pop form while Kenogo, a song about a girl who breaks traditional cultural norms when she asks a man to marry her is a world fusion song. Orikuura Akafunjo, about a girl who gives tasks to her suitors to wield out the weak appears on the album with two versions; one recorded with violin, another one with just piano karaoke form. Even if some of the songs on the album actually have lyrics to sing along to, Allan Watson Waswa did not include the vocal versions on the album. Studio recording started in December 2017 with The Harvest and the rest of the songs were recorded during the world Covid 19 pandemic lockdown.