TAKEAWAYS

• Kalifah Aganaga challenged A Pass to a music battle after he criticized the Nassanga Remix.
• He defended Eddy Kenzo, citing his BET Award, Grammy nomination and role in funding the remix.
• Kalifah argued that the Nassanga Remix is outperforming A Pass’s recent releases and urged him to stop publicly mocking fellow musicians.

Kalifah Aganaga has challenged fellow musician A Pass to a music battle following the latter’s repeated criticism of the Nassanga Remix, a project spearheaded by Eddy Kenzo.

For weeks, A Pass has taken jabs at several Ugandan artistes, but his recent remarks about the Nassanga Remix, particularly Kenzo’s verse, appear to have pushed Khalifa to respond.

Speaking during a TikTok Live session, the “Oyitangayo” singer questioned why A Pass continues to attack Kenzo despite his achievements on the international stage.

“You’re attacking someone with a BET Award and a Grammy nomination—achievements you may spend your entire career chasing and never attain. If you think you’re that good, let’s settle it in a music battle.”

Kalifah also reminded A Pass that Kenzo played a key role in financing the Nassanga Remix project and deserved respect instead of ridicule. He challenged the singer to produce a song currently performing better than the remix.

According to Kalifah, the remix is among the biggest songs in the region, with impressive numbers across YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music and other streaming platforms.

“Show us a song of yours that’s bigger than the Nassanga Remix today. It’s among East Africa’s hottest records, while your last hit only dominated conversations for a couple of weeks.”

The Bad Character boss further argued that if A Pass genuinely wanted to support Ugandan music, he would have promoted the song instead of mocking it publicly.

He added that musicians should focus on creating music rather than positioning themselves as critics of their colleagues’ work.

Kalifah maintained that reviewing and critiquing songs is a role better left to media personalities, bloggers and YouTubers, insisting that A Pass has no justification for constantly belittling fellow artistes while promoting his own music.