Jose Chameleone

Joseph Mayanja better known by the stage name Jose Chameleone, (born 30 April 1979) is a Ugandan AfroBeat artist and musician. Chameleone sings in Luganda, English, and Swahili and has won awards.

Sometimes as mononym Chameleone or at times as Dr. Jose Chameleone, he is one of the most popular and most outstanding Ugandan musicians in the 21st century. He started his music career in the early 1990s with the Ogopa Deejays, a Kenyan record label then and managed to gain popularity because of his talent across the entire African continent. Chameleone's music style is a mixture of Ugandan folk music, central African rumba, zouk and reggae. He has won quite a number of awards (about 20 of them) and continues to stand strong as the country's most outstanding musician in the 21st century enjoying strong popularity across the African continent.

Musical career

Chameleone's career began in 1996 as a DJ at the Missouri night club in Kampala. He was later signed to the Kenyan record label Ogopa Deejays, which released his first single, "Bageya" that featured Kenyan artist Redsan.

Throughout years he has recorded record selling albums like Mama Mia, Mambo Bado, Jamila, Kipepeo, Bageya, Shida za Dunia, Bayuda, Njo Karibu among others

Other activities

The speaker of the parliament of Uganda, Rebecca Kadaga, designated Chameleone to be the Ambassador of the Busoga Tourism Initiative.^[1]

Chameleone is a member of a coalition of musicians who use their fame and fortune to help reduce poverty and create awareness campaigns for HIV/AIDS. He has performed overseas including in the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Belgium,^[2] Malaysia, China, South Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia, Malawi, South Sudan, Germany, and Switzerland, among others.

Personal life

He is married to Danielle Atim. The couple have five children who are all living in the United States. He is also currently pursuing a political career as Kampala (Uganda's capital)'s lord mayor.^[3]

His younger brother Pius Mayanja is a well known artist under his stage name Pallaso

Discography

Albums