Faridah Nakazibwe was curious about how babes treated Navio after becoming a successful rapper as a teenager. Nakazibwe, who hosted Navio on her NTV morning show dubbed Mwasuze Mutya, asked: How did you handle the bu-girls at school?
Navio: At that age, it’s a simple life. Things are not that complicated. I think I was more known for my sports… And besides, when we started Klear Kut, I was more of a hypeman. The other boys were really talented.
I had to work to hang with them… The Mith, it came naturally to him. But the rest of us had to really get better at rap to compete.
Navio and his peers in Klear Kut — Tom Mayanja (The Mith), Jonathan (J-Baller) Leslie, Abba (Langman) Lang, and Habib Abdul (Papito) — were already being recognized globally as early as 14.
During the show, Faridah Nakazibwe guided Navio as he walked viewers and listeners through his career journey.
Navio, real name Daniel Lubwama Kigozi, was born on October 18, 1983, to Daniel Kigozi Serwano and Dr. Maggie Kigozi.
He told Nakazibwe that he inherited artistry from both parents, with the father having been a good photographer despite being an engineer by profession and his mother also loved music a lot.
Their family moved to Kenya during the civil war in Uganda, and Navio, the last born of three, was born there.
He went to St. Andrew’s Turi in Kenya for primary school and played a number of sports, including rugby, hockey, basketball, and swimming.
High school was in Uganda at The Aga Khan High School, then joined Monash University in South Africa for an undergrad degree in communications and media studies and international relations.
In primary school, he impressed his mother after she bumped into him singing at home. She took him to Baava Studios owned by the legendary artist Hope Mukasa. At the time, Steve Jean, now a household name, was interning at the studio and he recorded Navio’s song.
Navio, with the guidance of Jean, wrote the song himself. He was also active school choir for some two years. In primary, Navio had studied with Lang who would meet The Mith and Papito in high school. Lang connected the two to Navio and they started hitting DV8 Club for rap battles during holidays.
Mitch Egwang hosted the battles that featured some known names like Bataka Squad (Babaluku, Saba Saba [Krazy Native], Big Poppa Momo MC., Newton, Lyrical G, Chagga, Shillingz and Farious), Da Squad, DJ Mumu, MC Yallah and others.
Klear Kut later got a deal with a record label named DMD and it helped them record their first album with 16 songs, and the first song off it was ALL I Wanna Know featuring Juliana Kanyomozi.
Before teaming up with DMD, they had recorded their first song titled Nothing Wrong and it was produced by Steve Jean.
Their next album dubbed K2 had a song titled Superstar on which they featured Bebe Cool. Another song on the album called Mon-coeur put them on the prestigious Kora Awards nomination list. Navio will mark 20 years in the music industry on September 2 in a concert held at Sheraton Hotel Kampala.
