Elly Wamala is credited with the invention of this genre but abandoned it because it was constantly and easily played informally by people he considered uneducated.
It is common to find kadongo kamu artists staged on the streets of Kampala (Uganda's Capital City) entertaining a micro concert for a small fee usually raised by the crowd.
Fred Masagazi and Eclas Kawalya are credited for having popularized it by actively recording in this genre in the 1960s and early 1970s.
In the mid to late 1970s, during the dark days of Idi Amin, this genre was kept alive by Peterson Mutebi.
Although many song themes revolve around suffering and outrage, the original artists of this genre sang about love and often praised women in recordings that hardly exceeded three and a half minutes.