ELISA NIYONKURU whose stage name is Off Smoke is a Trap and Hip Hop artist who has taken his music a notch higher by incorporating foreign language for the sake of getting Rwandan music on the international level. He kicked off his music career in 2014 at the age of 16. So far, this singer has already released about 20 audio songs. He explained why most of his songs are in the English language. “The songs I make are predominantly English, because I want to expose Rwandan talent on the international level in languages many countries have in common. Sometimes I mix in Italian and Spanish as well so that Rwandan music is heard across the globe,” he said. Some of his popular songs are ‘Lamborghini Love’, ‘Horsemen’, ‘It Hurts’, ‘In God I Trust’ and ‘South Africa’. Some of which are on his first Album, dubbed ‘Demons’ which is a mix of Trap, Drill, Afro Beat and Hip Hop album went out last week on Thursday. Others are on the six-song Extended Play, ‘Lamborghini Love’. Among his challenges, Off Smoke said that he often faces the one of lack of ability to reach out to as many people as possible, the production of video clips at the best level and the management, especially as independent artists who have to cover everything financially. He has collaborated with different artists and worked with different producers for his projects like ‘Simu Imezima’ featuring Treasure Tyler from Tanzania and ‘Digits’ featuring Aqua Gang from Zimbabwe and has produced most of his tracks with his young brother, Beat B Maker, and Kaycee Wavey and Jay West who are both from Johannesburg, South Africa and Dazyx from Finland on his new album ‘Demons’. He told this publication that some of his next two projects are; ‘In My Bed’ featuring Charizzy, an upcoming female artist from South Africa and ‘Pricy’ featuring Kiddhillz from Lagos, Nigeria. “Although in these Covid-19 times it is difficult to do concerts or sing in different places, there are some other music sites that actually I sell my audio songs. Music is business, for now I do sell my song to more than 50 sites around the world like Spotify, Amazon, iTunes, Boom Play, YouTube Music just to mention a few.” Off Smoke said. Besides music, he also does freelancing in Software Development, majoring in building Android applications and Websites, for a living.
