If you have followed urban gospel music over the past few years, you must have heard of a ragga-dancehall singer named Zabuli.

Her energy both in recorded songs and live performances will definitely amaze you and show how fast the gospel music industry has grown in Uganda.

Her music has gained a lot of airplay on Christian radio stations and TVs over the past few years and as of 2017, her music was well appreciated and started playing on big mainstream radios; she is a star now.

Who is Zabuli?

Born Jaliah Nasejje to a Muslim father and a Christian mother in Entebbe, Zabuli is the third born in a family of five. Out of the five, four are girls.

She grew up and studied her Primary School in Entebbe until she completed Primary Seven in 2004.

She later joined Light Secondary School in Bulenga from where she joined Makerere University and graduated with a Bachelors degree in Education.

Life in School.

While in Secondary School, Zabuli struggled to make ends meet, since her family was low on finances.

“I had to survive the hustler’s way,” she said as quoted by gospel music directory, The GMP.

She says she joined a gang of 7 boys and was the only girl, a situation which forced her to get a tomboy attitude.

This condition forced her to indulge in some vices including stealing, doing drugs to help her fit into the gang.

“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,” she said.

Zabuli says she failed senior four examinations 3 times and on the fourth attempt, she sat for the exams in hand curfs.

Turning Point

Zabuli’s mother played a big role in the transformation of what was formerly a gangstar to a Christ believing church girl.

She accepted and confessed Christ in 2009 before getting baptized. This was a game changer in her whole life.

She was admitted to Makerere University in 2011 to study a Bachelors degree in Education but still life didn’t go well since finances were still limited.

The then reformed lady would later work to fix her relationship with her mother and father who she had been distant from for a long period of time but as fate would have it, on July 27th 2012, her dad passed.

“I did my first song then as a tribute to my father because we had become best friends,” she was quoted as having said.

In 2013, she released her first song ‘take the wheel’ asking God to take her as well as celebrating the life of her fallen father. The song came out in 2014.

Zabuli’s career as an artiste gained ground in December 2015 after she graduated from Makerere University 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.”

Currently, Zabuli has recorded over 15 songs most of which are aimed at healing people’s wounds.

She has won a number of awards in both gospel and mainstream awards which have seen her rise to the top.

Her recent concert tour saw big turnups in every place she performed and her testimony has always moved people whenever she tells it.

You can follow Zabuli’s music on her You Tube channel:  Zabuli

Watch her Video: Mwana Wa Muloodi