MI FA SOL MI LA LA LA SOL DO IT RIGHT RE MI RE MI RE RE RE OR DO NOT MI FA SOL MI LA LA LA SOL DO IT AT ALL RE MI RE MI RE RE RE DO
MIGHTY POPO
make IT happen
This is a man who strives for peace inwards outwards. Not with bare hands, but with his guitar. He calls her the gun of love. Not without a vision, but a conscience to make it right. Not without a plan, but with a mission to be useful to the others, or else nothing matters. Name your own answer. Popo Murigande.
Lightness and vital energy. Humbleness and a true sense of royalty. Simplicity and strength. It could come from his ancestors' heritage or from the way he discovered his path so early in his life. It could come from the way he lived between two worlds and the way he managed to carry them in his heart, on a swing between one side and the another. It could come from the way he grew up in the revolutionary neighborhood Ngagara, in Burundi's Bujumbura or the way he had chosen to live in the far Canada. “I could have lost myself, but something inside, my 'base', what my parents taught me, helped me feel the freedom and set those borders between which you have the peace.” It could come from the way his life journey brought him to places where he felt natural to step out of the music tour car and sit and sing along with people he encountered. It could come from the way he felt when he first touched Rwanda’s soil: “It was 1998. I was 30. I stood there and everything just made sense like I knew it before, but everything was new and still I find something new every day. My music changed." So did Rwanda, as few years later it experienced the first world class out-door music festival and the first national music school. With his mind focused on bringing his best to his country, he managed to open up a possibility. He had longed for that his entire life. Everything one aims for the benefit of all can become real, when you believe that what you do is right. And what is right for Popo is Music. An immensely complex musician dared to dream and had the drive to make his dream happen. His inner need to be the positive change in his own country is rooted in the responsibility he naturally embraces for his own people and the Rwandan culture. "If we forget our heritage we are finished, we are dead, we are not people anymore, because there are so many elements out there which try to crush our heritage so we can all look the same like everyone else and be the consumers that this world wants us to be, but some of us say no, we have to hang on to our tradition and pass it on.” Kigali UP and Nyundo Music School brought hope and changed a mindset: culture is the most valuable asset a country holds within and must be protected and nurtured because culture is the expression of one nation’s soul. Music is life and life is a celebration. Music can change the world. Music does make our world a better place. Music and art must be celebrated and culture and traditions must be treasured and kept alive. “The minute I lose my culture I am not me. And I don’t want to be the other me. I want to be the real me. Therefor everywhere I walk on this Earth becomes my place, because I know who I am and my place on Earth. The minute I don’t know who I am than I'm wondering. I respect other cultures so much, other religious, but me have to be respected and has to have its place on this Earth in this world. The minute I know who I am and I love who I am, automatically I love my other fellow beings and I respect them in the same way. That's how I see it.” 2011 is the start of KIGALI UP, a celebration of Rwandan African and World Culture, a festival that since then is bringing together each year world class performances, artists and people, and that became internationally recognized among the 7 great festivals in the region. More. The country needed something more and this need turned into a professional creative music platform which since 2014 is called Nyundo Music School. "Personally my desire is to teach (my students), to coach them, so that they will be able to do the things that they want to do vocally, and take that from Rwanda to other parts of the world. I see these kids becoming internationally-known if they have the desire to do so.", Popo mentioned in CNN's Inside Africa report about Nyundo Music School, as School Director.
"I like to think about the bushman who comes home after hunting to celebrate with his family no matter if he caught something or not." Here is someone worth listening to and while listening, try to give attention to your own call to the right action. Let it in.
Talking with popo
He chooses to have Ikivugutu. But first he asks if he can try it. The waiter brings some in a small metal boll. He tastes it, likes it and asks for a full long glass. The long glass with Ikivugutu on the table appeared like a sablier, measuring our first conversation in one of Kigali's Bourbon Café. When the glass was empty, so was our meeting. After one week we encountered the pleasure to meet him again together with his family and sat around their mango tree.
9 february 2014. tTalking with Popo Murigande at his home in Kigali
Under the mango tree...
Under the mango tree for real…
You mention something about missing the stage.
What is preventing you from being on stage right now?
It’s our Rwanda. I mean where do you go play?! Not many places you can go perform.
That’s why we try to make it happen!
Is that what triggered the need to start the music school?
The music school is actually the country’s need. Is under the Ministry of Education and TVET. They were looking for somebody to do it and I was here at the right time. I put the concept together. They were looking for somebody to get this started. And whole concept is my idea. But they were looking to build a music school. Now I have stopped my career to set this solid base. I must do it right or nothing good will come up from it.
And what about the festival Kigali Up?
This is what we are trying to do. We are trying to professionalize this sector, the cultural sector. All of us we are volunteers at Kigali UP. What I am doing with Kigali Up is what the government is trying to do with the school. To gather anything that is needed to create a professional school that can teach musicians to be professionals. Some come from the scratch, others that are already in the music industry who need somehow of the improvement.
Was it also to provide a place for people to perform?
If you are going to teach music you are going to teach people how to perform. So the school is actually going to provide a music space, a professional recording studio all these facilities. If you are going to teach kids how to perform well they must know how it looks like to be on a good stage in good sound. Is pretty much trying to professionalize every sector of the music industry. From the management to creation to the business of it. Everything is covered; to instrumentalists to singers to promoters to managers to DJs and MCs.
Is it evolving how you like it?
So far so good. It’s a lot of work to develop the curriculum. Work that needs a lot of brain.
Do we have those brains?
We do, we do have those brains in Rwanda. All that was missing was a platform and the means. SO we have the means. It’s not easy, but we are gonna make it. We have to make it.
How do you have the means to do this festival?
You mean Kigali UP? Volunteers and donors and sponsors run it.
How do you have the means to do this festival?
You mean Kigali up? Volunteers and donors and sponsors run it. Usually I was used to found raise from Canada, a bunch of friends of mine would just fundraise people who want to help, it was an action from artists to artists. And on the side here we got some sponsors from Bralirwa, Tigo, Skol, from the Ministry of Culture and Sport they gave us the facilities and last year we got some help from RDB. So we would like to get as much help from the private sector and the government institutions.
Is it difficult?
It is difficult, but nothing is easy.
Do you think those people believe in the project’s importance?
You have to make them believe. What I am realizing in here is that you have to make them see what it is you are doing. Cause the concept itself is not familiar to their realities. You have to make them believe. You have to prove, physically (laughing).We have done 3 already so you have seen it. Many people have seen it. So there is no more we can do to prove what we are able to do.
But this must make you very very busy…do you get time to compose?
Every Thursday and Friday. Thursday from 6 to 8 and Friday from 4 to 6 I am at the French Institute to sit and compose in a creation studio. And when I am here and I got some time away from these 2 (smiling to his kids who are around him under the mango tree) of course. I have to compose, I have to play. If I don’t do that I don’t feel natural. I have to be composing. I have to be playing.
Do you have particular subjects to your inspiration?
Things that come back, you know recurrent themes?
I am aware of what’s going on in the world. I have been concerned about what’s been happening in the world. That’s what I’ve been writing about.
Politically?
Every other way; politically, socially. Mostly socially, but we cannot avoid politics. We suffer from the consequences of bad politics. So I try to put poems into reality. . What I write about is topical but I try to give a little twist…we are entertainers, so I try to put a twist to what’s going on. But what inspires me is everything. It’s everyday life. I don’t choose: today I’m going to talk this or that. No. It just comes. And sometimes I feel like there’s a song somewhere…it’s like seeing something where you cannot find it and I try to get to that place. I would start with a melody and that thing is somewhere and when I reach, I know I reach. And then I write lyrics. Or sometimes I start with lyrics. I just write lyrics and when I think I’ve reached that thing I know it’s time to bring the melody, and most of the time it really jives, it’s a natural mix, I don’t know how it happens but it does happen.
You don’t have a particular method.
Like some people would say I first find the melody and then the lyrics. For you just goes…
It comes. But sometimes I just put the guitar down and say, ok, I cannot do this today, I will come back to it. It has to come that way for me because I don’t see it any other way. That’s why it takes me 3 years to make an album (laughing).
Do you think that a lot of people are inspired by what they are, their history.
Being someone who comes from different places your identity is kind of mixed.
You can say you are a metisse culturally. How do all these Popo’s in you get along?
They have managed to squeeze into one Popo. Luckily. Cause I refused to be categorized. I’ve convinced myself way back that I don’t want to be categorized. I don’t want to be limited. So somehow if it’s not coming out as me I notice right away.
But what is you?
(laughing)...I have no idea.
Mighty Popo
Mighty Popo
Mighty Popo
Mighty Popo
Where is home?
Home is really where my head is at. Physical home is this (showing around), my spiritual home is here (showing to his heart) inside.
You don’t have a relation to space.
Space is the Earth. I don’t want to sound pretentious. There are certain areas on this Earth where I feel home. And it’s here, In Rwanda of course.
But you grew up in Burundi.
I was born in Burundi. Grew up half in Burundi, most in Canada, but this was always been my physical home. Cause I have heard so many beautiful stories and horrible stories about here. I am not limited to space. My being is (not) physical really. As a citizen of Rwanda I have responsibilities that I have to fulfill. As a father and a husband I have responsibilities I have to fulfill, as a musician as an artist I also have responsibilities I have to fulfill and as a human being I have managed to know my call from the time I was 10 years old so that is what I am living right now.
How did that happened?
I have no idea. It’s a call.
Do you remember the first time that you realize that this was your call?
I can’t pin point and say this was the first time. But it’s when I heard the sounds of the guitar. I heard the people playing the guitar in Ngagara. I said this is really what I would like to do. Not to be a staaar. I didn’t even know what a star was cause there were no superstars in my neighborhood. There were just kids and people playing and having fun, joie de vivre, you know? It's fun it's the swing. And as I grow older it just was obvious to me that this was what I wanted to do, without a doubt. Which is why for everything that I’ve done my artist’s self was always in front.The artist is always ahead of.
Can you say there is something you’ve taken from Burundi?
Plenty, plenty of things. My neighborhood Ngagara is that joie de vivre. We were refugees right?! But there is nothing that we didn’t have. Except this country. Rwanda. So Ngagara was is …our formative years as good citizens and concerned citizens of this world it’s where we realized that …I don’t want to make it sound like it was this…but it was…it was an amazing time.It’s where I read about Che Guevara. It’s where I’ve listened to Bob Marley for the first time. Jimmy Hendrix - Muddy Waters everything that I’ve heard, everything that had inspired me musically majority of it really I’ve started listening to it when I was in my teen years. Football, revolution, they were revolutionists in that neighborhood. Really we’ve start learning about Karl Marx and Che Guevara and the Cuban revolution and all the great Pan Africanists. We read about Cheikh Anta Diop, V.Y. Mudimbe all the great African progressive writers. And all the great American thinkers. (W.E.B) Du Bois, Malcom X so these were our formative years. We read about Sartre. French literature…from social to what you collate to the intellectual…it was all those years.
What makes Ngagara such a revolutionary hub?
It’s is all that stuff. You are in this little country in Africa, in this little town in Burundi, but you are reading a book about Marx and Che Guevara and you listen to Jimmy Hendrix and Milles Davis (he laughs). The “scope man” is wide. Not everywhere was a revolutionary. But many were. And of course there were all these early Rwandans that fled to Burundi, I mean our fathers and our uncles and our cousins. Many of them have fought along side Che Guevara. Inyenzi…And of course you have all these people who were advocating for the Rwandan culture to survive. Saint Hallow was my neighbor, Masamba’s dad. Mirimba and Frere Nirangira. Timote who wrote many of the songs that we dance today is my uncle so he was at my house everyday listening to him singing. You know what I mean? The best tuitional singers and dancers Nyamgos I see them everyday when growing up. I listen to them.
So for you not doing what you doing would have been like a sin…
No, death! (laughing)I would have been dead.
In the end we can really say that Burundi was part of what made you today.
I can say that.
What can you say you took from Canada?
Plenty. Like I said. It was a continuation of myself. Canada is a land of plenty. Now as a musician I have access to many instruments, to other great musicians. You meet light minded people. Canada really offered me a platform from where now I can progress as a professional, the network is there, the record company is there, the festivals, le clubs. It’s one of the major capitalistic countries. So you get to see first thing what we were reading in the past. So you get to put your thoughts, you see the “livity” of it. You really grow from fantasy to reality.
Did you like that reality?
It is not if I like it or didn’t like it. I had to survive in it. You get so many disappointments but from that you learn.
What were your disappointments?
Hey, we are human beings. We are so imperfect. You realize we are not living into an ideal world so you start putting everything together so you can actually connect the dots. And you must survive in that jungle that Bob Marley says the “concrete jungle”....
His daughter is pulling a little branch from the mango tree...
Father: Oya, oya ntukibabaze nacyo kirababara.
The guitar starts following a song...Fatuo Yo.
Ngaho icara aho ngaho turirimbe icara nawe ucurange. wowe uraririmba.
Kami (his son) acurange. Turaririmba.
Fatou yo si dia dialano...
Father: cyangua tutirimbe iyindi.
Daughter: oya ndashaka gucuranga
Father: ngaho, harya uri gauchere son: oya, bafata gurya.
They start singing as she plays in a rather clumsy and adorable way.
Daughter: Bafata aha n’aha, n’aha nose.
Father: You see the whole trouble, so that our kids can grow up here.
Although we had the same upbringing, but we were foreign to that physical place.
Daughter: byananiye, cuyangiya.
Then she asks for the guitar again and her father’s helping her to hold it.
Daughter: fatira neza
So in the end it matters to you to be in Rwanda…
Very much so. It’s where things make more sense. It’s like having all those places that you call your own but you choose the one you are ready to suffer for. This is the place that I realized that if I need to bleed I could bleed for this place. And everything else is there , but if I need to bleed for a place, I can bleed for this place.
Why this attachment to this place?
It’s a natural attachment I think. There’s no place like home. Although I may say I am on this Earth...but when I leave this physical place and go to another one it’s Rwanda where I am thinking. So I have this labeling that I am proud of and I don’t apologize for.
Does it transparent into your music?
Very much so…
So what’s the flavor of your music?
It’s definitely Rwandan base. The roots of it are Rwandan but it’s decorated by the rest of the Afro – oriented world. I am inspired by African music from anywhere where there are African people. And that means the world. But the foundation is Rwandan.
So if you want to put a label on it, how would you describe the gender?
For the sake of selling music these days they call it world music.
So they didn’t even tried to place it …They’ve put it in the world.
But me I call it folk roots. Folk roots African Music.
Do you compose in other languages than Kinyarwanda?
Yes. English and Kiswahili. Less English. More Kinyarwanda and Kiswahili. I find it suits what I am doing when I am saying.
A particular message to your music...
It’s a message of hope and a message of resilience, I don’t want to sound too generic, but the deep message of my songs is unity, resilience it’s pride, it’s hope, it’s life, it’s looking for one another mostly. It’s like me I don’t mean much unless I am utile as well. I am really nothing; I don’t want to be, unless I am beneficial for the others whatever I do
.
The Mighty Popo jamming on his and Bob Marley's songs with his unique crafted gutar signed by Taj Mahal
Popo’s unique sound was first documented in two of his early album releases: Tamba in 1996 and Dunia Yote in 2000. Dunia Yote was voted “Best Album Release” at the 2000 Music Africa Awards and was nominated for “Best World Album” at the 2001 Canadian Independent Music Awards. Both albums received global airplay and international recognition. More recently, Popo and his band have performed for enthusiastic audiences at clubs, theatres and festivals across Canada and France. Popo’s third album, Ngagara, was released in 2003 by CBC Records with world-wide distribution by Universal. It was recorded with a band whose roots cover the planet and is named after Popo’s childhood home. After listening to Ngarara, it’s easy to describe the album as Canadian as the snow on the Ottawa River, as African as the great lakes of East Africa and as global in its appeal as in its vision. In 2007, Popo was voted the Best Folk Artist at the Canadian Folk Music Award for his album Muhazi. There are simply too many notes on Mighty Popo’s music world to be able to mention them all.
ONANINANINANANANANANANANANANINANANANA
LIFE IS A CELEBRATION
Don’t you sit there and wait for a miracle to come
That won’t help
Don’t you sit there pretending you are too young to be the bold change
That won’t help
I know the road is rocky by yourself is too tiring
The road may be heavy for you to carry on
...
So hear me out Let me it Let me trot away your bluesy feeling
Won’t you GET UP
STAND UP
Trot away your bluesy feeling
...
In October 2015 a group of nine students from Nyundo Music School performed at Axis Mundi Harvest, one of the biggest music festivals in Canada. This event was part of their first music tour in Canada where they performed and also visited several music colleges. Here is one of their shows.
A study of 8 to 11-year-olds found that those who had extra-curricular MUSIC classes developed higher verbal IQ and visual abilities compared to those with no musical training.
A review of 23 studies covering almost 1,500 patients found that listening to MUSIC reduced heart rate, blood pressure and anxiety in heart disease patients.
In 60% of people who have had a stroke, the visual areas of the brain are affected. This leads to ‘visual neglect’ where the patient loses awareness of objects on the opposite side to where the brain has been damaged. Amazingly, studies have found that when patients listen to their favourite tunes some of their visual attention is restored.
I am Fatou, pretty Fatou,
I am Fatou, pretty Fatou,
I am Fatou, pretty Fatou,
I am Fatou, pretty Fatou.
Fatou oh, oh Fatou,
Like all the children of the world
I am Fatou, pretty Fatou.
Fatou oh, oh Fatou,
Like all the children of the world
I am Fatou, pretty Fatou.
I am happy and will surely grow up
I am happy and will surely grow up
I am happy and will surely grow up
I am happy and will surely grow up
I will grow up like everybody else
Like the little elephants and the little giraffes
Like everybody else
Like the little elephants and the little giraffes.