City comedian and Bukedde TV presenter Davis Kabuye aka MC Easy Dee has succumbed to throat cancer a few months after he appealed to government to lift the ban on music shows so that he can get money for his treatment.
Speaking on his YouTube channel as well as several social media platforms, Kabuye narrated that he was diagnosed with throat cancer some years ago and had battled the disease successfully after he underwent an operation for a tumor on his left side of the neck. He was then placed on chemotherapy treatment and was responding well to it, with his doses coming every three to four months.
Easy Dee, however, narrated that things turned for the worse after government banned music and other entertainment shows as a way to stem the spread of the Coviod-19 pandemic. This meant that Easy Dee could not raise enough money to meet the high cost of his cancer treatment. By the time of his death on Friday August 20, 2021, Easy Dee and friends were running a fundraising campaign in which he was soliciting for Shs25m to enable him go to Nairobi for a surgery of a tumor that emerged on his right side of the neck.
Easy Dee was a common face at Muhangi’s comedy store shows where he acted in comedy skits with fellow Bukedde presenter Godi Godi.
Saleh Snub
Kabuye’s appeal came after several city comedians also made an appeal to meet Gulu-based operation wealth creation patron, Gen. Salim Saleh so as to be bailed out since they no longer have any source of livelihood. The comedians including MC Kapale, Mariachi, Amooti Omubalanguzi among others, noted that without shows, many of them can barely survive.
They thus begged to be helped with funds just like government through the industry’s ‘chief blesser’ Gen. Saleh bailed out musicians and music promoters. Gen. saleh is yet to come to the comedians’ rescue.
Kabuye’s plight mirrors the deplorable state many artistes and entertainment industry players find themselves trapped in ever since government banned music shows. While government says it banned the shows to avert the Covid-19 spread, many critics opine that the ban is being sustained so as to curtail NUP boss and singer Robert Kyagulanyi from using such shows to campaign against government.
Earlier this week in Mukono, bar owners came up and appealed to government to lift the lockdown on them citing accumulation of growing loan debts that are crushing them. However, government is yet to make a commitment to them while Gen. Saleh has also until now snubbed comedians who badly want to meet him for bailout.
