Nita

Nita Katushabe, who performs simply as Nita, built a full career in engineering before deciding music was the work she actually wanted to do. She's since said her guiding idea is Hans Christian Andersen's line that "where words fail, music speaks" — a fitting motto for an artist who spent years being precise for a living and now writes to get past precision entirely. Her voice carries classical training underneath it, which shows up as control and steadiness even on her more stripped-down acoustic recordings.

Her sound moves across Afro soul, afropop, gospel, and world music, pulling specifically from Central African rhumba and Afro-fusion rather than staying inside one lane. It's an intimate, vocal-forward style built for close listening rather than a club system — closer to a songwriter's set than a produced pop record.

Nita released the singles "Mulongo" (February 2024) and "Ffembi" (May 2024) — the latter a story about a woman pushing her partner to finally propose — ahead of her debut EP, Love Hustle, which she has described as built around the pull between ambition and intimacy. She marked the EP with a release party where she performed "Ffembi" live, and followed it with the singles "Nitusiima" and "Again" in April 2025. She's also staged her own live showcase, Nita's Musical Garden Party, at the Kampala Music School — the city's dedicated classical and jazz training center.

"Ffembi" remains her most-performed record live, and "Forgive Yourself" has done the most to define her critically — reviewers have placed her soul-pop delivery next to Emeli Sandé, John Legend, and Alicia Keys, with the emotional directness of Leona Lewis or Alexandra Burke. Her actual most recent release, though, is "Body on Me" (September 6, 2026), logged in RIA's own catalog as a hip-hop/trap single — a harder-edged departure from the soul and gospel textures that otherwise define her work. No public writeup or theme has surfaced for the track yet, so it's noted here by title and date only. It's a fair snapshot of where she sits: a formerly full-time engineer who built a career writing devotional, confessional soul music, now testing harder-edged ground on the side.