If you didn't dance to this man, my brother, you missed purgatory and went straight to boring!

This was not music. This was electricity. Pure current from Brazzaville to Kampala.

Aurlus Mabele, born Aurélien Miatsonama in Poto-Poto, Brazzaville, in 1953 and deceased in 2020, was the undisputed KING OF SOUKOUS. Co-founder of Loketo in 1986 with Diblo Dibala, the Machine-Gun guitarist, and Mav Cacharel, he helped create a sound that defined an era. Loketo means HIPS in Lingala, and that was the whole constitution. He sold over 10 million albums, not by singing slow love songs, but by removing the slow intro completely and shouting: DANCE NOW!

1988 - TWO YEARS AFTER NRA UGANDA WAS DANCING PAKA CHINI

Abange mwe, remember!

1986, the NRA had just entered Kampala. Guns still warm. NRCs were the new chiefs in every village. People were tired of war, tired of curfew, tired of crying. Uganda wanted to breathe. Uganda wanted to dance.

Then 1988 came. Two years into the new Uganda.

And who was on every cassette? LOKETO.

Loketo was not just music. Loketo was a household name like sugar, like salt, like Radio Uganda. If you did not have a Loketo cassette in your house, were you even in Uganda?

From Katanga Kivulu to Kololo, from Mbale to Mbarara, the same sound. That NRC chairman who was serious in the morning with his book, in the evening, after one beer, he is dancing paka chini to Aurlus! That schoolteacher, that nurse in white uniform, that taxi driver of OT Taxis, UTODA, all bewitched.

If Kilingala was a big deal, Loketo was the landlord. A new cassette was wealth. You would hide it from friends who would "borrow" it and never return it.

THE SOUND YOU COULD NOT REFUSE

Put on Liste Rouge, that RED LIST.

The guitar starts like a bicycle that has lost its brakes on Kitgum House slope: waaa-waaa-waaa-waaa! Diblo Dibala, the Machine-Gun guitarist, didn't play guitar; he shot happiness. Drums like someone chasing you with joy. And then Aurlus, dressed like a Paris Sapeur, shining shoes, silk shirt, shouts: Liste Rouge!

You didn't dance. You were DANCED by the music. Your legs moved before your brain permitted.

Then Evelyne.

Evelyne, oh Evelyne... Na lingi yo...

That song! He could call a woman's name and make EVERY woman in the room answer "Yes!" That was his power. Sweet voice, but guitar sharper than a new razor from Nasser Road.

This was the time of Nasser Road Wolokoso faking; you had to be careful. You go to Nasser Road, you say, "Mukulu, give me original Loketo." You check the cover. You check if it hisses. Because a fake cassette would spoil your evening. You go home, you oil your dancing shoes, you put your battery in the deck, and you tell the children, "Remove shoes, this is Loketo time!" Even grandmothers moved shoulders. Even babies in the back stopped crying.

And he didn't stop, because a King never has one hit:

• Embargo - The anthem of 1990. When government said embargo, we embargoed sadness. No sadness allowed!
• Betty - Every Betty in Uganda, from Betty in Kawempe to Betty in Kyotera, thought that song was written for her alone.
• Africa Mousso / Femme Ivoirienne - He praised African women like queens. Big hips, small hips, all queens.
• Asta De, Zebola, Waka Waka, Vacances aux Antilles, Sans Frontières - Each one was a dance stock you could withdraw anytime and still be rich.

WHY WE ARE HAPPY THIS WEEK

Aurlus taught us something: Life is SEBENE.

In Congolese music, there is rumba slow, then SEBENE, the fast part where the guitar speaks in tongues and the drums run mad. Aurlus modernized it. He said, "We have suffered enough war, enough coup, enough queues. Give them sebene DIRECTLY!"

That's what Uganda needed in 1988. After years of war, we didn't need slow songs. We needed SEBENE. We needed to dance paka chini and laugh again. That is why NRC danced, NRA danced, civilians danced, everyone danced.

He died in Paris in 2020 at 67, during Corona, but tell me, how can a man who made Africa dance from Brazzaville to the Caribbean, from France to Nakawa-Kamwokya, from Mbiko to Bulumagi Kitigoma, die?

Put him on NOW.

Put on Liste Rouge. Volume up. Let the solo guitar cry like 1988.

Then put on Evelyne. Call someone you love Evelyne, Betty, Nawozantya, Rebecca, whoever. Tell her this song is yours.

Then put on Embargo. And put Miryam on your stress, your rent, your landlord.

If you didn't dance to this man's songs and dance stocks, count yourself out of purgatory.

Because in purgatory, Aurlus is still on stage, dressed in white, shouting: Loketo!

The Kifuuta Oracle says: Long Live the King of Soukous. Aurlus Mabele, Loketo Forever!

I remember Sikabugali, my late brother. He used to have it all. Omulamu bumpi.