The biggest song on the album almost didn’t get made.
When producer Kaboo first sent A Pass the beat that would eventually become Buwooma, Uganda’s most feel-good track of the moment, the singer had absolutely nothing. No hook. No concept. No words. Just a beat sitting on his phone, quietly waiting.
A week passed. Then A Pass sat down with a rolex — Uganda’s beloved street food of chapati wrapped around fried eggs — and everything changed.
What happened next produced a song so infectious that it outlived every other track on the Miracles album, racked up views at a speed that surprised even its own creator, and reminded Uganda exactly why communal joy never goes out of style.
The full story behind Buwooma is even better than the song itself.
Let’s set the scene.
A Pass — real name Alexander Bagonza — is one of Uganda’s most versatile and celebrated artists. When Kaboo sent him the beat for what would become Buwooma, A Pass knew immediately that it was different. Different enough that he couldn’t just sit down and write to it like any other record.
“Recording Buwooma was tricky because the time I had to record it, I felt like I couldn’t find the right way to approach the beat,” he revealed in a candid conversation with Mbu. “I told Kaboo I needed time, so they gave me a week.”
A week later, they came back.
He still had nothing.
And then — salvation arrived in the form of Uganda’s most iconic street food.
“I was eating a Rolex, the beat was playing, and I just started humming and playing around,” A Pass explained. “I was trying to find something sweet. In my mind, I was cooking up something nice — hence the line byofumba biwooma.“
He hummed the chorus. Recorded it on his phone before the feeling could disappear. Called Kaboo. Called Tryton Muzik. And just like that, Buwooma was born.
But that’s not even the wildest part — because A Pass himself admits he is “surprised by how fast the song has moved.” The man who almost gave up on the track is now watching it become the defining song of an entire album.
Buwooma — which loosely translates to “It is sweet” — is the closing track on Miracles, the collaborative album between A Pass and Kampala-based producer Kaboo. The project was built around a singular theme: the desire to enjoy life, in all its textures and flavours.
It is a fitting theme for A Pass, an artist who has carved out a unique space in Uganda’s music landscape over more than a decade — known for his lyrical depth, genre fluidity, and an authenticity that has earned him a fiercely loyal following.
Kaboo, his collaborator, has steadily built a reputation as one of Uganda’s most distinctive producers, with a sound that blends contemporary Afrobeats sensibilities with unmistakably local flavour.
Miracles was already generating buzz before Buwooma’s dominance became clear. But as is often the case with great albums, it was the final track — the one recorded last, under the most uncertainty — that turned out to carry the whole thing on its back.
Fans immediately noticed something different about Buwooma the moment it dropped.
The song’s warmth — that effortless, communal sweetness baked into every bar — connected in a way that felt less like a music release and more like a shared memory. People weren’t just streaming it. They were sending it to friends, playing it at gatherings, and posting it with captions about enjoying life.
The internet had thoughts, and they were overwhelmingly, joyfully positive.
The music video poured fuel on the fire. Shot in Entebbe and centred on the deeply African tradition of communal Malwa drinking — where different tribes gather around a shared pot — the visual gave the song an identity that was impossible to scroll past.
Within a short period, Buwooma had outpaced every other track on the Miracles album. The last song recorded. The first to go viral.
Some fans believe the rolex origin story — now widely circulating — has only deepened their love for the song, with many joking that Uganda’s street food deserves a co-writing credit.
Others have pointed to the music video’s celebration of African communal culture as the reason it resonates so broadly, with viewers tagging friends and family across Uganda, Kenya, and beyond.
A Pass referenced two visual touchstones during the video’s creation — Desire Luzinda’s and GNL Zamba’s Soda Jinjale — both beloved for their authentic portrayal of traditional Malwa culture. Some fans believe Buwooma now belongs in that same conversation, as a visual document of a lifestyle that modernity keeps threatening to erase.
It’s unclear whether a remix or extended version is in the works, but given the song’s trajectory, it would surprise nobody.
There is something quietly profound about the story of Buwooma’s creation.
A Pass sat with a blank page for a week. He felt the pressure of a beat he couldn’t crack. And instead of forcing it, he let life happen — sat down, ate his rolex, let the music find him rather than chasing it.
The result is a song about sweetness, created in a moment of sweetness, that is now spreading sweetness to everyone who hears it.
In an industry that increasingly rewards speed, volume, and noise, Buwooma is a gentle reminder that the best things — the ones that last — usually arrive when you stop trying so hard and just let the feeling come.
Here is the delicious irony at the centre of this whole story: the song that almost broke A Pass’s creative spirit, the one he couldn’t figure out for a week, the last track committed to tape on the entire Miracles album — is now the reason most people know the album exists at all.
He was eating street food.
Uganda’s biggest song right now started with a rolex and a hum.
Somewhere in Kampala, a rolex vendor is completely unaware that they may have just contributed to Uganda’s song of the year.
Do they deserve a cut of the royalties? We’re asking for a friend. 🫔🎶