Musician Ben Mulwana was born in Uganda, but now resides in Wisconsin. Today, he tells WTMJ’s Libby Collins the story of how he began playing music in Africa, his move to Wisconsin, his biggest culture shocks and much more on this edition of WTMJ Conversations! Listen in the player above.
A partial transcript is provided below, courtesy of eCourt Reporters.
LIBBY COLLINS: You said you went to high school where?
BEN MULWANA: Nairobi, Kenya.
LIBBY COLLINS: How did that work out?
BEN MULWANA: That’s actually where I started playing music. Despite my parents actually being musicians themselves, and it’s always been kind of a music family, but I didn’t really take too much interest in it until I tried to impress a girl in Kenya. I didn’t even remember what we were talking about, but she just said, I really like guitar players, and I thought, oh, come on, man. I always thought it was lame because anything that your father does is not cool.
LIBBY COLLINS: Is not cool.
BEN MULWANA: Yeah. So, I went back home, asked my sister to teach me a few chords, and I really wanted to impress this girl. So, I started YouTube, and I chose the song Slow Dancing in a Burning Room, which was just a terrible song to pick for a crush. I learned it and very, very poorly tried to play it for my crush and she hated it, and I hated it, but I love guitar, and I love music, and I just kept playing after that.