7 Ugandans Under 35 Already at the Top of Their Field

Jacob Kiplimo crossed the line at the 2026 London Marathon in 2 hours, 0 minutes and 28 seconds. The third-fastest marathon in human history. He was born in 2000. In the same running season, Joshua Cheptegei still held the world record over 5,000 metres and 10,000 metres. He was born in 1996. In Kampala, Joshua Baraka released his single “Wrong Places” last year. His catalogue already includes more than ten albums. He was born in 2004.

You can build a case for Uganda’s cultural and sporting future on birthdays alone. The country’s under-35s are not “coming up” in the polite way that phrase usually implies. Several of them already occupy the top spot in their discipline, judged against everyone competing on the planet. The seven below are all under 35 in 2026, and each one holds a documented top-tier position on the public record for their field. They are ranked here by how far past “promising” the achievement has already travelled.

1. Jacob Kiplimo: The Third-Fastest Marathon in History

Jacob Kiplimo was born in 2000. He runs long distance for Uganda. Both of those sentences understate what he actually does. His Wikipedia entry lists him as the previous world record holder in the half marathon, a four-time World Cross Country champion (junior title in 2017, senior titles in 2023, 2024 and 2026), and a bronze medallist over 10,000 metres at both the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the 2022 World Championships. His personal bests of 12:40.96 in the 5,000m and 26:33.84 in the 10,000m sit inside the top ten all-time in each event.

Then there is the marathon. Kiplimo ran 2:00:28 at the 2026 London Marathon. The third-fastest time in the history of the distance. Held by a Ugandan, in his mid-twenties, competing on a course that has hosted every top marathoner alive. That is what “already at the top of the field” looks like when it is not a slogan. He is not chasing anyone. He is one of the people the rest of the marathon field is now chasing.

2. Joshua Cheptegei: Two Standing World Records

Joshua Cheptegei, born in 1996, is the current world record holder in both the 5,000 metres and the 10,000 metres. He once held the world best time over 15 kilometres as well. Consider what a single one of those records would mean for a country’s athletics programme. He owns two of them at the same time, in the flagship distance-running events on the track.

Cheptegei is 30 in 2026. That means he set his current standard while still on the front side of his career, and he has held it against the whole of the global field ever since. Uganda does not have to argue about whether it belongs in world distance running. It has the world record holder in the two most-watched track events, and his name goes at the top of the results list every time either race is printed. A country produces one athlete like this in a generation, if it is lucky. Uganda has him now, and the record book has his name on it in ink.

3. Halimah Nakaayi: Uganda’s 800m World Champion

In 2019, Halimah Nakaayi won the 800 metres world title. Not a Ugandan title. Not an African title. The world title at the World Athletics Championships. In 2022, she added a bronze medal at the World Indoor Championships. She holds the Ugandan record over 800 metres both indoors and outdoors, and the national record over 1,000 metres as well.

Nakaayi was born in 1994. Middle distance is not a soft event, and the 800 in particular is a race that demands a mix of specialisms: sprinter speed on the last 200, cross-country endurance across the first 600, race-craft everywhere in between. Nakaayi did not get to the top of that event by accident, and the national records she holds have not been moved in years. She belongs on this list because she settled a question that Ugandan athletics used to only ask about the distance events. Uganda can win the 800 on the world stage. She proved it, and she still holds the standard at home.

4. Levixone: Gospel’s Most Decorated Under-35

Levixone, whose real name is Sam Lucas Lubyogo, was born in 1992. Since 2012 he has staged nine successful concerts in the history of Ugandan gospel music and, on the public record, collected more than 51 accolades. The list includes the 2018 Sauti Awards for East African Male Artiste of the Year in the United States, and the 2021 Vine Awards for Male Artiste of the Year.

Ugandan gospel music has a serious commercial life of its own, filling churches, radio playlists and long-form concert productions, but its artists frequently get discussed inside the genre rather than alongside the broader Ugandan pop conversation. Levixone’s award ledger cuts across that split. East African Male Artiste of the Year is a regional honour that is not gospel-specific in its framing. Fifty-plus accolades is a career-length quantum, and he is 33 in 2026. He sits inside the age bracket most artists still spend building toward a first major award, and he has already spent more than a decade at the top of Uganda’s gospel scene.

5. Azawi: Swangz Avenue’s Afrobeats Signature

Azawi, born Priscilla Zawedde in 1996, signed to Swangz Avenue in 2019. That signing matters more than it usually gets credit for. Swangz Avenue is the label that has anchored a specific version of Uganda’s contemporary pop sound for the last decade, and adding Azawi to its roster meant putting a young Afrobeats vocalist inside the country’s most consistent commercial hit-making machine.

What she has done there is deliver Afrobeats in both Luganda and English, moving between the two languages without either sounding like an afterthought. That bilingual comfort is not something an artist can fake. It requires a specific ear for how the two languages carry rhythm differently. At 30, she is already the current-generation reference point for what Ugandan Afrobeats sounds like when it is written for two audiences at the same time. The most-repeated Ugandan pop songs on radio right now include her work as a matter of course, which is the surest sign that a young artist has crossed from “rising” to “established.”

6. Farouk Miya: The Cranes Attacking Midfielder

Farouk Miya, born in 1997, plays as an attacking midfielder for Uganda Premier League club Vipers and for the Uganda national team. That combination is more important than the individual line items suggest. The Uganda Premier League is a competitive domestic league, and Vipers is one of its serious clubs. Holding down an attacking midfield role there while also anchoring creative play for the Cranes means Miya is currently one of the country’s most reliable senior footballers in a decisive position on the pitch.

Attacking midfielders are the players a team’s offensive shape actually runs through. When a striker scores, someone earlier in the move usually made the decision that opened the space. Miya has been doing that job at club and country level long enough for the two team-sheets to feel unusual without him. He is 29 this year, in what most footballers would recognise as the middle of their prime. Football in Uganda tends to get discussed in terms of what has not happened yet on the international stage. Miya’s steady club-and-country record is one of the things that has been quietly happening while the discussion focused elsewhere.

7. Joshua Baraka: Ten Albums Before His 22nd Birthday

The last name on this list is the youngest. Joshua Baraka, born in 2004, is a Ugandan recording artist and music producer. He is 22. According to the public record, he has already released more than ten albums, including Baby Steps, Belinda and Sana. His breakthrough came with the single “Nana” in 2023, and he followed it with “Wrong Places” in 2025. Both landed inside conversations that most Ugandan listeners had already been having about him for months before the tracks even dropped.

Ten albums before 22 is not a normal working pace. Most artists take a decade to build a catalogue that size, if they get there at all. Baraka has done it while also producing his own material, which changes the arithmetic further. He is one of the artists this generation of Ugandan pop listeners is likely to still be arguing about in twenty years, because his output curve is already visibly ahead of the trend line for his age. If you have missed him so far, correct that before the next single drops. It will, based on his current release rhythm, be soon.

The Standard Is Already Set

Seven Ugandans, all under 35 in 2026, each one holding the top spot in their field on the strength of the public record. That is what the country actually looks like right now if you look past the loudest headlines and check the results books, the label rosters, the world championships podium sheets and the domestic league team-sheets. The under-35s are not chasing anyone. Everyone else is chasing them.

For more Ugandan celebrity coverage from the same corner of the Wolokoso desk, our recent list of Ugandan athletes who hold world records and Olympic gold stays entirely on the running track, and our long read on Uganda’s musical chapters across the generations traces the sound from the Kabaka’s court to today’s ten-album 22-year-old. If you would rather look at how the country’s women in music specifically shaped what the industry sounds like, our piece on the eight women who defined Uganda’s sound covers that ground in detail. And the full Wolokoso hub collects every celebrity and personality story on Kampala Index in one place.