As Club Harlem was closing in Atlanta, Ange Noir discotheque aka Club Guvnor was being birthed in Uganda. 1986.
In Kampala, the National Resistance Army had just come to power, and freedom was fresh on the streets. People needed a place to dance and sweat off the war.
That year, Run-DMC’s Walk This Way was peaking at number four on the USA’s Billboard’s Top 100 and Doug E Fresh & the Get Fresh Crew’s All the Way to Heaven had just been released.
Yet on November 30, 2024, 38 years later, the club where 2Pac’s California Love was first played in Uganda, the club that gave Kampala night life its defining culture as East Africa’s City of life, the club that served us fresh lilies and succulent apples—The Ladies’ Night closed; with a dash to the past, the Oldies Night.
“I thank you so much for the support over the years. For the support of a dream that started in 1986 in Livingstone Hall (Makerere University),” Charlie Lubega the founder and proprietor thanked the revelers as he took on the decks for one last spin. He was last in the DJ booth 32 years ago.
Charlie, as he is fondly called, did not say why he was closing the club; but lately night-time economy business, not just in Uganda, but even in Europe has been in a crisis.
Data shows that between March 2020 and December 2023, a total of 3,011-night economy businesses closed in London and its surrounding boroughs- the steepest fall for any English region, the BBC reported in an article.
In Uganda, either because they have less in their pockets or out of sheer change in taste and preference, people are increasingly preferring their lowkey local bufundas (micropubs) to the neon lights of night club culture.
In 2010, I attended, in Nairobi, Florida 2000’s last dance. Fresh out of university, and my first time in Nairobi, I did not quite have any nostalgic attachment to the club.
Standing in Guvnor that last night, however, I couldn’t stop thinking about how the night was not just about Guvnor closing. We were coming to the end of an era.
The Kasirye Gwangas, the General Kale Kayihuras, soldiers who, then young officers fresh from the war, patronized the club through their different gangs, are either long dead or back to the village in retirement. The NRA itself, now UPDF, and the government it brought into power in ’86 look to also be staggering to the finish line. The end is nigh. To put this in context, look round you for a person born in 1986.
“You cannot find this anywhere anymore,” said a friend, whose identity I will not reveal for it was a private night out, as we walked through the neon lights outside of club. “This is traditional night club culture, and the country seems to be moving away from that.
“Maybe it will return one day,” I quipped. He looked at me and smiled, as if telling me to get out of the nostalgic slumberland and accept that that train is gone and gone probably for good.
Guvnor’s last night was like a college union. Almost everyone knew everybody.
“Charlie used to be called muko (in-law), because this place was the only place in town where people met as the city family and also met girlfriends and wives,” said a friend as we eased into Prince’s Purple Rain.
When Ragga Dee, the 90’s deejaying and MCing maestro, walked in it was nostalgic.
“For this night, I said I must come,” I overheard him tell a friend from across the table we were on, before walking over to greet, and hug some, us from across where we were.
He then walked over to the DJ booth, to play hype-master as Charlie sampled the House to two songs.
38 years later, and with so many businesses and investments on his sleeves, Charlie was done with disco business, or at least with guvnor. He walked around, his official cameraman in tow, taking photos with his friends and long-time customers, as if to capture the day in posterity.
I asked for a selfie, for he obviously did not know me though I was in the company of people he had known throughout the 38 years of the Club history, and thanked him for the good service over the years.
“It has been because of people like you, our customers,” he replied with profound humility. It was the G-handshake as I said bye to him on my way out that gave me a hint although he is almost 60 and closing the club, he has not changed. He has just become O.G.
