It’s not very often we get to hear and see music instrument players staging album reviews, especially in nascent markets like Rwanda’s. That perhaps explains the hesitancy I had when I was invited to Deo Salvator’s second music album review.
I regretted being hard on the organisers who graciously extended an invitation and pressed ahead to convince me to be part of it, even though they knew I had been associated with the industry for quite some time.
I’ve covered the entertainment industry before I made a bold decision to go into something else, something I don’t regret. But I’ll be fair to say that ‘feel-good music’ still has a special place in my heart.
Thanks to Salvator and his team, I was reminded that we need to deliberately support good talent. Salvator is an amazing music icon, a talented guitarist, one that very few mainstream media has written about.
His album review at a private party on Saturday, November 5, is a confirmation of the talent that he has possessed since he was a child growing up in a musical family.
His siblings play piano and sing. His uncle is a classical musician and multi-instrumentalist, his son is a pianist while his daughter a drummer.
Two of Salvator’s cousins also play guitar and his brother in-law is a bassist.
‘Life Within’
Salva, as known by many among his circles and those that follow his craft, takes us first on a journey of life through his album titled "Life Within Vol II”.
It is a multitude of genres and sounds that feature on the album. But before we could get a sense of what Salva was trying to achieve with his album, two performance acts took to the stage.
Inganji, a guitarist, was the first to take on stage. He is probably the kind of person you’ll want to listen to while exhibiting his skillset on the guitar.
It’s the kind of soothing and exhilarating sounds that compels you to pay close attention to. I particularly liked his rendition of ‘Imagine’ a tribute to John Lennon’s.
"Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace, you”
Deo Munyakazi with his Inanga took us back to the traditional roots of Rwanda’s folk music, performing the majority of his "Isoko Dusangiye” album, his latest.
The album has versatile tracks ranging from one that praises Rwanda’s cows, all the way to the gospel tunes that fuse Kinyarwanda, Luganda, Lingala, and English sounds in a creatively convincing way.
Salva’s performance
It was an emotional moment, when Salva showed up on stage led by a guiding stick, his eyes masked with a blindfold, which he later revealed, was to honour his blind mother.
Salva possesses so many memories growing up with a blind mum, including a particular moment he mentioned where they would be walking on streets and people would think they were beggars.
The first song on his ‘Life Within’ album, ‘Guide that Sea’, was particularly dedicated to his beloved mother.
The second song he played was inspired by John Drille’s treatment of Salva when he came to Rwanda. Drille is a Nigerian singer and songwriter.
It talks about being kind and grateful. These two are global characters but only a few in milliard possess, and so it makes sense to have a song that fixates on the concept of gratefulness and kindness.
"We all have a way to appreciate. When it comes to humility, that is the time where words fail me but guitar saves me,” Salva said as he performed ‘The Songs of Ighodaros’ dedicated to Drille, real name John Ighodaros.
Also, who thought mental health would be a subject of focus for artists. Well, Salva’s steel guitar takes us to the core of music craft that heals and inspires generations to have strength in a world full of the unknown.
He then switches the guitar to play the West-African inspired sounds of Kora, a traditional 21-string harp-like instrument.
Yet, the show wouldn’t have made complete sense if he didn’t play Jarabi from my most treasured Gambian artiste, Sona Jobarteh, the first female Kora player from West Africa.
The album will be released on March 1, 2021.