Ever since Bobi Wine, Uganda’s biggest pop star, won his seat in parliament in a contested 2017 race, Western journalists have flocked to the country’s capital, Kampala, to conduct interviews with and profile him. The interest is certainly justified: in a short time, Wine, real name Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, has turned a decade-long career in music, often addressing the problems faced by Uganda’s poor, into a political movement of which he is, undoubtedly, at the center (and one that has the Ugandan state nervous). He has announced he will challenge President Yoweri Museveni for the presidency in 2021. Far from replicating the conventional trappings for which western journalists are often criticized with regards to reporting on Africa and its politics, reporting on Wine has presented a rather distinct challenge, one that reinforces a formidable challenge in Ugandan political history.

In June, at a cafe in Kololo, Kampala, I spoke with Moses Khisa, assistant professor of political science at North Carolina State University and a regular contributor to Uganda’s opposition newspaper, the Daily Monitor:

I’ve been fascinated . . . by the overwhelming interest, and perhaps even obsession if I may put it that way, with Bobi Wine. So, I keep asking myself, “Why? What is it that you see that I, as a Ugandan, haven’t quite figured out?” Okay, so I know that this guy is a celebrity, he appeals to young people, he’s a new kid on the block . . . But I have never in my lifetime seen such enormous Western media interest in an African politician, let alone a Ugandan politician . . . Almost every media house that matters has been reporting on Bobi Wine.