Makoha was born in Uganda, and left the country as a young boy with his mother to escape the dictatorship of Idi Amin,[1] and has since lived most of his life in the England.
[3] Carol Rumens, in a Guardian review of her best poetry books of the year, wrote that Makoha's work "is charged with ethical sensibility.
[11] Makoha is a graduate fellow of Cave Canem, which was founded by Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady in 1996 "with the intuition that African American poets would benefit from having a place of their own in the literary landscape.
"[12] Based on the model of Cave Canem, Makoha established the Obsidian Foundation,[13] which helps black poets of African descent advance their writing practices.
[16] Makoha was poet-in-residence at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) from November 2022 to April 2023, conducting research into the practice of American painter Jean-Michel Basquiat, both in his own writing and in a series of workshops and events, as well as going to the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal to interview Mary-Dailey Desmarais, curator of the exhibition Seeing Loud: Basquiat and Music, organised in collaboration with the Musée de la musique – Philharmonie de Paris.