Peter Sematimba is not appreciated enough – Roger Mugisha

According to media personality Roger Mugisha, media personality and politician Peter Sematimba is yet to receive his flowers for his contribution to local music, particularly in laying the foundation for what has become a thriving local music industry today.  

He stated that when giving out credit, he is always left out yet even on radio, he contributed as much as the other revered media entrepreneurs like William Pike.

“I have a lot of respect for Peter Sematimba. He should be appreciated. People don’t like to give him credit for what he has done. Even what we have as real competition in the radio landscape, there are people that are core. People like Sematimba, William Pike, Patrick Quarcoo. Now the radio industry is for pick and play,” he said while appearing on Urban Television’s Rush Hour show on Tuesday, August 22, 2023.

Mugisha also added that Sematimba singlehandedly engineered what became the local pop culture that later dwarfed the sounds of Congolese bands plus the mindset that had made them dominant here.

“He should be given credit for giving music pop culture here its first footing. Before we had more of a zouk influence, more of Congolese bands and the band mindset was strong.”

Sematimba returned to Uganda from the US in the early 1990s and started Dungeon Studios, one of the early commercial music recording studios and ran Super FM that is still active to date.