It’s almost twenty years since his first opus, Exile, came out on Peter Gabriel’s Real World label. Today, Geoffrey Oryema remains loyal to the man he considers to be something of a mentor. He has invited two of Gabriel’s regular musicians to play on the new album, due out in a few weeks: bass player Tony Levin and guitarist David Roads. The latter is best known for his famous guitar riffs on Yé Yé Yé, the track used as the theme tune of France 2’s television show Le Cercle de minuit in the 1990s.

More than thirty years after he took exile in France, the Ugandan giant still seems haunted by the dictatorship he grew up under. He was forced to leave his country in 1997 when his father, a government minister, mysteriously died in a car accident that was actually a disguised assassination. The young Geoffrey then left Uganda for France, hidden in the boot of a car.

When he met up with his French fans again in early June, after several years’ absence from France’s concert halls, he couldn’t help bringing up his painful memories between songs, although the reserved man’s tone was always composed. One of the songs that he presented that night, How long it will take, was chosen to head his first album. The theme is sombre and the music haunting. The lyrics tell the story of a man condemned to death whose only hope is to be shot as quickly as possible to avoid thinking about it. “It’s something that I lived through when I was in Uganda under Idi Amine Dada’s regime.  I saw soldiers shoot people down in public places. I always wondered what must go through the minds of those condemned to die.”  

Another key title is Letter to commander Joseph Kony. The lyrics were inspired by one of the bloodiest men in recent history: Joseph Kony. Geoffrey Oryema explained in his introduction to the audience that he wanted to draw the world’s attention to what happens to these child soldiers recruited at such an early age. “So I wrote an open letter to Joseph Krony, the leader of the Ugandan rebel movement, ‘LRA’ (Ed.: The Lord’s Resistance Army) asking him why he led these young people to commit so many atrocities. I sent a copy of this letter to the Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni. The third copy is for you, audience, and with my record, for the rest of the world.”