Lukaya Washing Bay Entertainment Center in Lukaya town council was a scene of running battles last night between police and rowdy revelers who threatened to lynch local artist Jose Chameleon. Trouble started after Chameleon whose real name is Joseph Mayanja performed only a single song and tried to leave the stage complaining of the poor sound system.
As a result, revelers started throwing bottles on the stage accusing Chameleon and the Dickson Ssewankambo of Dick Production, who organized the show of trying to cheat them. Other artists who were caught in the melee include Betty Mpologoma, AK47, and Papa Cindy, the other artists who had escort Chameleon forcing police to intervene to save them.
Police fired live bullets in the air to disperse angry revelers. Ssenabulya Bagalalina, a witness to the scuffle says that it all started when Chameleon stopped performing and asked the organizers to hire another sound system. Ssenabulya says that Chameleon rejected the music system claiming that it was distorting his music.
He says that as a result Chameleon decided to end the show prematurely, which angered the revelers. Bagalalina says that revelers started to throw bottles and stones on the stage as they tried to stop Chameleon from living. Noah Sserunjogi, Southern Region Police spokesperson says that police was forced to fire bullets to save the artists from being lynched and prevent revelers from looting chairs.
He alleges that some revelers looted several chairs allegedly to compensate to recover the shillings 5000 they paid as entry fees. Sserungoji says police is holding unidentified reveler for hitting Chameleon with a piece of chicken. He also says police has opened up a general file to fully investigate the incident.
Both Jose Chameleon, the embattled local artist and Dick Ssewankambo, the concert organizers have not yet commented on the chaos. Recently violence broke out at Kitengeesa in Masaka town when revelers attacked Fred Ssebata accusing him of only performing a few songs.
