This video is from Uganda’s Nyege Nyege music festival, not a traditional Namibian wedding rite

This article is more than one year old.
Published on November 11, 2021 at 17:10
Updated on November 11, 2021 at 17:11
3 min read
By Mary KULUNDU, AFP Kenya

A video of two women gyrating on top of a man lying on the ground has been viewed millions of times on Facebook with the claim that it shows a traditional Namibian way of testing a man’s fidelity before he gets hitched. The claim is false; the footage was taken at Uganda’s famous music festival known as Nyege Nyege in 2019 and the women in the clip are dancers from Tanzania.

The recording, which first appeared online in 2019, has resurfaced in multiple Facebook posts with a claim that reads: “A practice in Namibia. A bachelor is seduced by the sisters of His intending bride. If he is aroused & has a hard-on, the marriage will not go on cause they claim it means he will be randy & cheat on his wife (sic)”.

One of the recent posts was published in July 2021 on this Facebook page bearing the name of Kenyan legislator Simon Mbugua.

A screenshot of the false Facebook post, taken on November 9, 2021

Another example from July reshared a viral 2019 Facebook post which has been viewed eight million times with the same claim.

A screenshot of the false Facebook post, taken on November 9, 2021

Similar posts appeared on Facebook here, here and here while this Instagram post claimed that the raunchy dance was a common practice in Cameroon.

On Twitter, the claim appeared here and here.

Some of the Twitter comments, however, noted that the footage was filmed during Uganda’s famous Nyege Nyege music festival.

Nyege Nyege festival

Nyege Nyege is an annual four-day music festival that takes place on the edge of the Nile in the southern Ugandan town of Jinja and features artists from across Africa. It is infamous for scenes of debauchery and in 2018, and Uganda’s ethics minister banned it, labelling it “devil worship”, as reported by AFP. It was later reinstated.

A keyword search for “Nyege Nyege" on Twitter led to another version of a similar clip, but filmed from a different angle and showing the drummers who are also present in the video we are debunking. The tweet indicated that the footage shows the 2019 edition of the festival.

A further search on YouTube with the keywords “NyegeNyege festival 2019” revealed a compilation of various scenes from the same 2019 festival. The clip used in the false claims is part of the compilation (see here).

Dilsizian Arlen, Nyege Nyege’s festival co-director, also confirmed to AFP Fact Check that the video was indeed filmed during the event’s 2019 edition. According to Arlen, the women are known as Singeli dancers from Tanzania.

“The video was shot at the traditional stage at Nyege Nyege on a Saturday morning of the festival of 2019 in Jinja city, Uganda. It has nothing to do with Namibia. The dancers are Singeli dancers from Dar es salaam, Tanzania. This is a traditional band from the Zaramo tribe,” Arlen said.

A search for more information about the dancers led to this video documenting the Singeli music genre from Tanzania. According to the artists, the genre is a mix of multiple music styles, including Jazz and Taarab -- a genre popular in Tanzania and Kenya. The dancers in the YouTube clip move with a similar style.

Arlen said that he had also seen the false claims online.

“I watched the video online and saw the misinformation that it was from Cameroon, [and] Namibia. I say that it is not true.”

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