Ask singer Juliana Kanyomozi the most phenomenal woman in her life, and she will tell you it’s her mother Mrs Catherine Manyindo.
Juliana is just a big baby before her dotting mother who has been there for her through good and bad times.
So when she was drawing a list for phenomenal women to feature in her Woman video that was released on Friday, he mother was top of Juliana’s list. The elderly lady appears in one of the scenes with her daughter, with glee and pride written on her face.
Juliana’s mother raised her family as a single mother after the passing of her husband Prince Phillip Gerald Manyindo.
“After their father’s death, it was hard to bring up Juliana and her siblings. As a single mother, resources were not enough but I tried,” she told New Vision in a previous interview.
She didn’t just try, she did very well, raising one of Uganda’s biggest musicians of all time, but she remembers trying to stop Juliana from singing because she thought she would make a good lawyer, though her father was very supportive of Juliana’s career choice.
“I remember she took interest in music in her P.2. She used to hold a Kimbo tin as a microphone and climb an anthill in our compound in Kamwokya as her improvised stage and sing for us,” he mother recalls.
“I now have no regrets because she has done very well,” Catherine says of her daughter.
Woman is Juliana’s comeback song after the July 2014 tradegy where she lost her only child, Keron Kabugo.
She took a musical hiatus but is now back with her first release, Woman, extolling the strength of a woman.
She features several everyday women in the video that was shot by Sasha Vybz to prominent women like the Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga, Tooro Queen Mother Best Kemigisa and rally ace Susan Muwonge. Opposition political firebrand Miria Matembe and Police Deputy Director of the Political Commissariat Judith Nabakooba also make cameo appearances in the video.
Juliana also doesn’t forget her “little” sister Laura Kahunde who also appears in the video.