Uganda’s Bobi Wine makes Time 100 Next 2019 list

Time's Africa correspondent Aryn Baker says that Bobi Wine has spent his career singing about social injustice and has been jailed, beaten and charged with treason.

“Now the 37-year-old singer, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, has set his sights higher, announcing in July that he will take on President Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled for the past 33 years through a combination of deft politics, questionable election practices and constitutional manipulation,” she writes.

"Wine’s growing popularity amounts to peril. He has been jailed, beaten and charged with treason, proof, he says, that the president is running scared well in advance of the 2021 election and that change is on the way."

Other Africans on Time's 100 Next 2019 list include film director, producer and author Wanuri Kahiu (Kenya), activist and politician Magid Magid (Somalia/UK), chef Kwame Onwuachi (US/Nigeria), visual artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby (Nigeria/US), supermodel Adut Akech (South Sudan/Australia), computer scientist and digital activist Joy Adowaa Buolamwini (Ghana/US) and Oluwaseun Ayodeji Osowobi, who works to rehabilitate rape survivors in Nigeria under her Stand to End Rape organisation.

"With this issue, we launch the TIME 100 Next, a new list – part of an ongoing expansion of our flagship TIME 100 franchise that spotlights 100 rising stars who are shaping the future of business, entertainment, sports, politics, science, health and more. Although this focus lends itself to a younger group, we intentionally had no age cap – a recognition that ascents can begin at any age," Time said.