On a windswept hill in Rweshamire, Ntungamo District, where mist coils through eucalyptus groves and red soil paths snake around banana terraces, music icon Bebe Cool stood gazing over the vast infrastructural marvel known as the Africa Coffee Park.
Clad in grey t-shirt atop black demin and well-polished black leather boots, the musician born Moses Ssali 47 years ago was unfazed by the cold gusts that battered the gazebo perched at the facility’s pinnacle,
Bebe Cool chatted passionately with Inspire Africa Group CEO Nelson Tugume. It was not a music rehearsal. It was a moment of revelation, brewed with purpose and national ambition.
The visit came just ahead of the inaugural Africa Coffee Marathon and Concert, set for May 24, 2025.
Bebe Cool, accompanied by his wife Zuena and his Silent Majority media crew, was not just there as an entertainer. He was there as a believer.
“I’m happy to be part of the coffee promotion process that we’re going to do throughout for the good of the country,” he said during his tour.
“And I encourage every young person to take part or be part of it.”
The Coffee Park, an audacious venture by Inspire Africa Group, rises like a cathedral of ambition from the rolling Western highlands.
What began as a dream now stands as Africa’s largest integrated coffee processing hub—a sprawling facility that symbolises a bold break from the continent’s traditional raw-bean exports.
The park boasts state-of-the-art installations: Sigma roasters, ground packers, capsule machines, extractors, freeze driers, drip coffee lines and the latest vacuum freeze driers, all gleaming under industrial lights and surrounded by the earthy aroma of roasted beans.
Leading Bebe Cool through the facility was Public Relations Officer Asuman Kigongo. The tour lasted over two hours. While others showed signs of fatigue, Bebe Cool seemed energised—as if the entire place had been laced with some potent coffee cocktail.
He walked each production line with the wide-eyed curiosity of a first-time barista, taking mental notes and peppering the engineers with questions.
Tugume watched this interaction with satisfaction. For him, Bebe Cool’s visit wasn't merely symbolic—it was strategic.
“Those of you... as baristas, you can inspire more young people like you and change the world that we live in,” Tugume told a gathering of young coffee ambassadors present at the site.
“The Africa Coffee Park stands for black people, the black race, the black generation to understand that they can determine their own destiny.”
And there is a lot to determine. Uganda is already one of the world’s top coffee producers, but the potential remains under-tapped.
Tugume's vision, backed by the Inspire Africa Group, is to transform Uganda’s coffee economy from its current $1 billion valuation to $5 billion within five years. How? By doing what the world’s coffee giants have done—adding value, branding origin, and capturing every coin between the farm and the final cup.
“I want Africa to get away from the raw material mentality,” Tugume said.
“Out of the USD 460 billion global coffee value, Uganda should at least be able to claim $5 billion.”
To that end, the facility is set to host more than just production lines. Plans are underway to add a Sports Complex, Convention Centre, Coffee Academy, and an AI-focused IT Park—turning the Africa Coffee Park into a city of innovation grounded in agribusiness.
Inspire Africa has already signed strategic agreements with partners in Russia and Turkey, which Tugume believes will help boost consumption and drive up investment in processing technologies.
“Inspire Africa Group is proud to introduce instant coffee production to Africa, starting in Ntungamo,” said Kigongo.
“We’re excited to pioneer this initiative and look forward to achieving even greater success.”
Indeed, the figures are already changing. Before Inspire Africa’s rise, Uganda could only export five containers of processed coffee per week.
Now it ships 15—making it the single largest exporter of processed coffee in Africa.
But perhaps the most poetic element of this revolution lies not in the numbers, but in the narrative—especially the story of women.
This year’s Africa Coffee Marathon is under theme, “Uplifting the Rural Woman,” an homage to the largely invisible hands that tend Uganda’s coffee trees. Organisers hope that this event, blending fitness with purpose, will become a clarion call for structural change.
The marathon features races in four categories: 42km, 21km, 10m, and 5km, and comes with a cash prize pool of Shs116 million.
Participants will run past scenic slopes, coffee plantations, and the serene shores of Lake Nyabihoko—offering both endurance and immersion.
The marathon has drawn attention from elite runners and enthusiastic amateurs alike, some already training in the district’s undulating terrain.
After the race, it’s time to dance—and here Bebe Cool reclaims his turf. The Coffee Concert, to be held on the same day, promises a dazzling night of Afrobeat and East African rhythms.
Bebe Cool will headline alongside fellow Ugandan stars like Eddy Kenzo, Ray G, and Truth 256. Tanzania’s Diamond Platnumz, Rwanda’s Bruce Melodie, and local darlings like Sister Charity and Beberi will join in.
For music lovers, this is the climax. For the coffee revolution, it’s merely intermission.
“Whoever is recording this,” Bebe Cool said with a laugh, “please send this message to Barista Timo in Dubai. I need all the baristas in Dubai to come back, get them coffee to Uganda, visit some very different places... and then the next year, the message of coffee begins.”
If Uganda’s message begins anywhere, it may very well be from that gazebo where Bebe Cool stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Tugume, the Western breeze tossing the hem of his shirt and the scent of roasted beans in the air.
The singer might have arrived as a guest, but he left as an ambassador for Uganda’s next export dream.
And in the cold, misty hills of Ntungamo, it feels like that dream is just beginning to brew.