Zabuli

Jalia Nasejje

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BIOGRAPHY

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Zabuli is a Gospel Dance Hall Artiste from Uganda. The energy she delivers on stage performances is indeed a holy spirit high. One like no other. We preset to you the woman of steel.

Story of my life by Zabuli.

My name is Nasejje Jaliah, born and raised in Entebbe by a Christian mother and a Muslim father. I am the third born out of five children. Among the 5, we are 4 girls and one boy. I went through primary school in Entebbe and completed my primary 7 in 2004. I later joined high school in 2005 at Light Secondary School in Bulenga where life changed radically because school was hard.

Mum and Dad were low on finances so I had to learn how to survive the hustler's way. Being a girl, I had come from a background of friends who were in a gang of 7 boys and I was the only gal in the gang so I had a tomboy attitude towards life hence it wasn’t easy to live but I forced my way to live happy at all costs. This sow me starting vices like stealing, selling marijuana among others just to fit in the group and help mum not to worry about me at school as I had seen her on several occasions crying to God just to provide for the next day.

She really was a hardworking woman even up to date. I felt the need to help her out but istead this made her cry because everyday I was before leaders and teachers in the disciplinary committee at school due to my wrong doings. I was an outcast. I would fight and beat life out of whoever went against me.

This earned me some time in prison just to learn a lesson which Mum didn’t know about. It was after I had been suspended from school that she got to know of all my dirty life in school.

After 3 years, I failed senior 4 though I got a chance to go to senior 5 with poor grades. In my form 4, I did exams on handcuffs. Not even this was enough to change me.

2009 came by and I went to a day school for my Advanced level. Every day I saw my mum cry in prayer for me to change because "everyone thought my life had no meaning at all". I was an outcast that nobody wanted anything from me. Not even my own father.

"With all this happening, it was kind of weird that my mum still believed God had a plan for me. She never gave up on me no matter the circumstances."

One time I almost fought her coz I was out of control but she still continued to love me.

This was my turning point. I was intrigued by the fact that she loved me despite my stinking character and ugly reputation.

I started going to school earlier, being respectful, obedient and I really weirdly joined church and started leading a dance group in church. I fell in love with church life.

By then, my father from way back was on loggerheads with mum due to her Christian faith of salvation because he vowed Islam as a religion for us with or without choice. I grew up seeing this struggle which caused domestic violence and almost drove my mum out of her marriage. My father’s family hated her salvation hence always considered her as an outcast.

When I confessed Jesus in 2009 September 9th, I got baptized. My school years to 2010 changed. I passed s.6. This made mum proud but she always wondered what had happened to me turning from the worst to something beautiful.

I joined campus in 2011 at Makerere University to pursue a Bachelor’s degree in education. Money was too tight. Mum tried as usual but life was ugly. I remember spending a month one time with no food but I had to attend lectures to pass because that was all I had left to change my prior family background.

I finished my first year at campus in 2012. My father was diagnosed with HIV-AIDS. The worst had come to the worst. Mum refused me to take a dead year because my other sister was in school in Kyambogo University and the other in the military. My baby brother and sister couldn’t do anything to help mum.

While in boarding school, I had started a beautiful friendship with my father because for all the past years, I never loved him for what he was doing to Mum. I had started growing close to him and leading my family to forgiving him for his past and here he was. I thought he was dying. This is the same year I got a job as a secretary/receptionist at a music studio around Makerere. My father’s sickness drained all the money we had, peace and joy. My family grew distant and mum almost lost her job. This really destroyed when someone called me on 27th of July as I was at my hostel to inform me that my father had passed on.

I did my first song then as a tribute to my father because we had become best friends. I had for the first time had a friend of a father “My father”. This big blow pushed me to feel bad through anything. I started sleeping around. I never drunk any liquor or use any drugs but I was in clubs and in groups of people who did these things.

In 2013, I released my first song take the wheel asking God to take me in because I had tried all things. My career as an artiste gained ground in 2015 December after I had graduated as a professional teacher. I discovered that my reason to live was to serve because every time I had something going on, I wrote a song out of it. This changed a lot of my thinking because I fell in love with music more. But most of all I fell in love with God and his ways more. I joined a discipleship class and got a mother church Mavuno - Kampala where I did “mizizi plugging into your purpose” and it has never been the same again. I have songs nursing me and other people radically.

I am a dancehall artiste in Uganda here to stay till my father calls me back home. With love and for love am teaching the word of my father. I am a blessing today cause God choose to see beauty when I had ashes to show.