Ugandan rapper, Hollywood star and part time lecturer at Kyambogo University, Ernest Nsimbi Zamba and his wife Mariam Tamar have joined George Floyd protesters in United States of America.
The George Floyd Protests started last week when a Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, knelt on the neck of unarmed black American, George Floyd, until he died. In a footage that made rounds on social media, George Floyd was heard crying “I can’t breath,” pleading with the police officer who failed to grant his wishes.
This sparked off a protest that started with the youths in Minnesota’s City of Minneapolis storming the streets, burning down stores and buildings, including a Minneapolis Police precinct after the officers had fled.
The protests later crossed over to major cities in the United States including, New York, Washington, Houston, Denver, LA, Detroit, Seattle, San Jose, Hawaii, Dallas, Chicago and others.
By Tuesday 2nd June, the Cable News Network (CNN) announced that all the 50 US states had participated in the protests.
The protests that saw Americans kneel on one knee for nine minutes in solidarity to the 8 minutes and 46 seconds the police officer Derek Chauvin spent kneeling on George Floyd, had many people holding placards calling for justice.
Many protesting crowds were heard chanting “I can’t breath” and “black lives matter,” calling on the US police to stop targeting blacks in America.
In his Facebook post however, GNL Zamba says that he knelt for 8 minutes and his knee hurt so much that he had to support it with his sneaker.
“I felt my whole weights on my kneel and how the pain started to permeate from how heavy I was. I couldn’t take it any longer. By minute 3, I shifted my pivot, put off my sneaker and put it under…I wanted to feel his pain. I wanted to honor George Floyd.” He narrated in his post.
“Justice is all we demand. I want them to feel the pressure when society says no. Enough is enough. We have to kill and vanquish the demon that is racism.” He further said.
GNL Zamba is regarded by many as a “Father of Lugaflow” a popular kind of hip hop music he claims that he introduced in Uganda.
After starting up the first Ugandan hip hop music label called Baboon Forest Entertainment, GNL Zamba housed a lot of Ugandan rappers including Keko, Mun G, Bigtrill, the Myth and many others.
He however relocated to United States to pursue an acting career in Hollywood that we are yet to know much about.
GNL and wife Tamar however started up a music project, Nsimbi, which builds on acoustic sounds and indigenous African instruments mixed with hip hope elements and western songwriting techniques.
