DJ Alex Ndawula, a quarter bottle of Uganda Waragi and a bunch of fun loving teens

Popular DJ, Alex Ndawula, who passed on yesterday evening was a very imposing figure who literally  towered above everything else whenever he was in the vicinity.

My first physical encounter with Ndawula was rather fractious and non enjoyable.

As young teenagers up to some mischief, we found our way to Corner Pocket, opposite the current Club Guvnor. The hangout was a popular spot, some sort of holding place for revellers trying to kill some time before they head to Club Angenoir.

For others like us, we were attracted to the place because of its music (always hip hop) and its meticulously laid out pool tables ( about eight).

The game of pool had just become popular and trendy and any 'dope' youth would not want to miss the bandwagon.

That was the time when Usher's "My Way,", Big Punisher's "Still Not a Player" and Tamia's "So into You" were big hits in the club and on radio.

So on a cold Friday evening in August 1998, Ndawula staggered into the place, one hand clutching a quarter bottle of Uganda Waragi and a lit cigarette in the other (Rex, it must have been).

I was engrossed in a pool game so I did not immediately notice him.

But one of my "homies" Rogers Mugarura (who unfortunately passed away in a freak accident in 2001), did.

"Fish, Fish...there he is," Mugarura beckoned me, calling me by a moniker given to me in High School (that moniker still stands in some circles but it is a story for another day).

"Who?", I replied without looking up. "DJ Alex" he said in a tone that was dripping with a mixture of respect and fear.

So I tightly held onto my cue and stood still, the bottom of my oversized jeans hugging the cigarette butt-littered floor.

Before long, his gigantic frame was "bouncing" in our direction, fumes of smoke offering a hazy backdrop like in those gansta rap music videos.

"What are you young  kids doing here at this time of the night," he said dragging on his cigarette.

"Go home and sleep. Go home," he shouted again, his imposing body swaying from one side to another. Boy, he was loud!

Everybody turned to our direction, anticipating a war.  No one, in our group, had provoked the controversial DJ.

See, we had somehow found our way out of school ( read escaped) and the last thing we wanted was to cause trouble for ourselves (and heart ache to our parents in case they found out that their kids, who are supposed to be safely tucked in bed at school were instead involved in a fracas in the middle of Industrial Area).

"What were you doing there in the first place and how did you get out of school?" I imagined that is how the inquest from my poor mother would begin.

Luckily it did not get to that.

Ndawula spared us the blushes and started to walk away, slowly as Warren G's hit "This DJ" played on a make shift sound system.

The resident DJ later told us that that was the only song that could "soften" him because he thought it was a tribute to great DJs like him.

Like him or hate him, Ndawula breathed life into radio and on the social scene, for those who encountered him.

He could be fun to hang around with but he could also be a nuisance, especially when the drinks got the better of him.

I was never his fan nor of Capital Radio (how could a radio station play one song five times a day?)

It was always Radio Sanyu for me.

For Ndawula, I always suspected that he strived too much to sound like an "American". That was before I learnt that he was born in the US and spent some of his childhood there.

Yet anyone could appreciate that he knew how to keep his listeners on the edge and the crowd on its feet.

Before local pubs graduated to dance clubs, all they had to do was to tune to Ndawula's Dance Force show on Capital Radio on Saturday evenings for free entertainment for their revellers.

"This is A.L.E.X and I need some S.E.X," he would occasionally tease some of the female callers who would burst out in chuckles.

When the New Vision started the "people of the year" series, Ndawula was always voted the "best DJ" by readers that the category, with time, lost meaning.

Later as his power on radio start to wane, Ndawula became quieter and less vibrant. In 2017, he officially retired from radio and went completly quiet, save an odd gig here and there.

For some us, Old Skool Junkies, you could bump into him at one of those get togethers at Gabiro or at Old Timerz in Ntinda. The only constant in his life was that quarter bottle of UG (premium and not plastic) please!

At 59, some people have said Ndawula died young. Yet given the drama, the entertainment and controversy that characterised his life, some would say he clearly had a blast that not many people who live up to 90 years, have.

He deserves a good rest!