Staff
By BigEyeUg Team
Former Back 2 Life singer Yiya Mozey has revealed that despite enjoying massive success with the duo’s chart-topping songs, he and his former music partner Ziza Bafana made very little money from their biggest hits.
Speaking about his music journey, Yiya Mozey said songs like Tebakulimba and Namagalo became household anthems across Uganda, but the duo failed to reap the financial rewards.
He explained that at the time, many Ugandan artists had not yet embraced digital platforms, making it difficult to monetize their music.
“The time we released our hit songs, me and Ziza Bafana, the songs were popular, but we didn’t benefit at all from them. We didn’t even hold a concert or purchase any tangible product from them,” he said.
He added that they did not own YouTube channels and instead relied on journalist Sam Yiga, who would forward their music to DJ Deen TV in the United Kingdom for uploading on YouTube, a service they had to pay for.
Yiya Mozey also reflected on the difficult years that followed the duo’s peak, admitting he struggled to come to terms with his fading fame. He said he spent four years, between 2013 and 2017, believing he was still at the top of the music industry. When he eventually launched his own YouTube channel in 2017 and released songs like Oh Nana and My Woman, he realized just how much his audience had shrunk.
According to him, his biggest song on the channel, Wujaala, had only 300 views, while most of his uploads attracted between 50 and 80 views, and he had just 42 subscribers at the time.
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