Take 5: With Artiste Extraordinaire Sitenda, on WILDFIRES and personal Career.

The first time you may have seen Sitenda aka Sitenda Kisakye must have been during the 2013 Tusker Project Fame. After that, she released a couple of songs that made rounds on radio rotation. It may even be news to you that she’s a guitarist, an events producer, worship leader at Worship Harvest Kati Kati and generally an all-round artiste.

We would love to spill some beans here, Sitenda is working on an album which she says will hopefully be released this year. You heard it first, here.

Today, we bring you a Take 5 interview-style that Ug Gospel Life will be employing to bring you what you need to know. She also talks In-depth about WILDFIRES, an event that we really want you to attend.

This is how the interview went.

You are such a vibrant character, why is that so? And what is your life mantra?

Okay! So! I’ve got a really vibrant character and I think I can attribute it to three things. One, uhmmm…. I think it comes from the name Sitenda Kisakye which means “God’s grace is beyond my praise. There’s a lot of things to be thankful about – to be praising about. That has something to do with it, but also, God is really good and just thinking about Him and being with him and being in his presence, makes me really Joyful.

And so, I see life as sunshine. I keep telling people that I am the face of the sun and that I am sunshine because I see God and I see good in life. I don’t know why! I am very child-like. I like to see things as a child and enjoy everything from a child’s perspective. So, I think that’s what makes me vibrant.

My life Mantra is, if you’ve gotta do it, do it big. That’s it.

We saw Sitenda from Tusker Project Fame, then the songs you released and while getting used to that, someone shocked us that you were the producer of the Mavuno Retro event that had Lota House in Uganda… Do tell? How did this merger of artist and events producer happen?

That is such a loaded question. So, after Tusker Project Fame (2013), and then I went away (to Kenya) for a while and did an internship with Mavuno Church. During that internship I actually learned how to produce events – like the services, and their events, and so that’s where I sort of learned how to do that.

When I came back to Uganda, I was with Mavuno Kampala and the Retro event was happening and I was here and I’ve never restricted myself to just being a musician. I can do everything, if I put my mind to it.

At the time, I enjoyed being a producer, so it was fun and exciting. It was hard work. I think I lost a lot of Kilos on that day because there was a lot of running about. But! It was so good. So, the merger just happened because well, I am an artist, an events producer, a guitarist, songwriter… I am everything that God decides that I am at the time.

What is Sitenda up to musically and or otherwise?

I am writing a lot more songs and recently I decided that I am going to release an album this year. It’s going to be a bit different from what I’ve been doing before – musically, style-wise and content-wise. It’s going to be based on God’s Love, God’s Heart and my view of that – and how I relate with HIM… and just sort of, like a relationship with Him. I am excited about that.

I also lead worship at worship Harvest – part of the worship team. I also teach guitar and vocals for now. That will be changing, but for now, that’s what I do.

And otherwise, I do a lot of hanging out with God. I like to discover Him and just spent time with Him, just reading The Word and just experiencing Him personally. When I am not in studio or teaching, I do a lot of hanging out with God.

Speaking of Experiencing God, there’s this WILDFIRES thing that is spreading, slowly but surely. What is it? What’s at the heart of it?

WILDFIRES! Oh My Gosh! Wildfires is a good thing! WILDFIRES is a space and an event that we have created for people to experience God’s heart; His Love, His Beauty and to just have an encounter with Him…. to ask him questions.. (for people) to find out who He is and His love for them and leave with healing in their souls and in their bodies – just from knowing that God loves them and that He desires them… that He wants to be intimate with them. So, it’s a very intimate event.

Why it’s called WILDFIRES is because, God’s love is a wildfire. It burns passionately but it also consumes anything that comes in the way of His love for you. This was demonstrated on the cross.

I also feel like The Holy Spirit is a wildfire… That’s what’s at the heart of it.

Right now, in my life, I am all about knowing God and His beauty and His heart and when I thought about an event that I could do, that is what came to my heart. I felt like it was a goal from God. So, I got Gloria Nafuka (of Power Fm’s The Bridge Show) and we decided to come up with WILDFIRES and that’s what it is. We love it.

It’s going to be amazing. We believe that the foundation of everything in life is knowing that you are loved….when you know that you are loved by God, there are chains that are broken – of addiction, and poverty .

We want to get to the heart of it and show people that they are loved. Get them to see God. Get them to know who God is and then know their identity and inheritance in Him and then from there, everything will be sorted.

Finally, tell us a bit about the first WILDFIRES experience which we missed *insert 😭 😭 😭 * and tell us what we should know about the forthcoming event.

Okay. So the first WILDFIRES was really exciting. It was was like a walk on water. You know, where Jesus told Peter, come and walk on water. We did not have much. We just decided, you know what, we are doing this thing – we believe in it, so we’re gonna do it.

We did it in November. It was at Innovation Village. It was fun. It started at 7pm. It was very chilled-out, cool, we lights – I am a lights person. It was beautiful. It was cosy. It was intimate. We had Brian Lubega performing for us.

So what happened was that we had a worship set at the beginning and then we had Brian Lubega come and talk to us about life, God, intimacy, his life and just sing his songs as well – Ndi Wuwe which is like one of my favorite ones, Wegukubira and all the other ones – very beautiful songs.

There was a space for healing, not just for us, but even for Brian who said after that, that he was very encouraged by that sort of thing that we were doing and that he would want to start something like that.

People, after that… Like my friend came and told me that at some point she felt like all her burdens were disappearing…the burdens were falling off of her shoulders. For me, that was exciting because, just for that one person or those two people, it was okay.

For this next WILDFIRES, we’re going to have it at Wizarts – which is at Ntinda above where Quality Supermarket used to be. It’s now called Master Supermarket. We’re looking forward to it.

We’re going to have Kimera (aka Sam Kimera) performing and talking about life and “does God really care.” I’ve found out that most people, even though they know God, they don’t believe he cares. They think He’s just a perfect God, ready to smite them at whatever they do or He doesn’t care whatever they are going through… and yet, I’ve found, in my life, that God is very caring. He loves us. He cares about every detail of our life.

This WILDFIRES is about that, but do you know it. Do you know that you are uniquely and personally loved by God?

It’s going to start at 7pm as always. It’s 10, 000 shillings at Wizarts Ntinda. We’re going to have Kimera doing his thing. I’ll also be there, singing a couple of worship songs at the beginning with a great worship team. Very chill. Very intimate. Very small but very cool as well.

So yeah! That’s what’s gonna happen. I just want people to come through and experience God. In my life, I haven’t met anything better, or anything which satisfies like God, so I want people to experience that. If I could just get everyone to come and just experience God, I would. That’s what’s gonna happen.