JEAN DE DIEU, a.k.a Icon Muzika and Elias Nshimiyimana commonly known as Kamu, together initiated Excellent Music Group which partners with other studios as a solution to upcoming singers with a limited budget. “I am an artiste who struggled financially and so I always take young artistes’ efforts into consideration. My colleague Kamu, who is a director, and I started ‘Excellence Music Group’. We first listen to the artistes talents and look at the discipline prior to enrolling the beneficiaries.” Icon Muzika told The New Times. According to the duo, most producers take forever to finish the artistes projects, especially when they are upcoming ones. So, Excellent Music wanted better the lives artistes. Since most of the artistes begin with limited or zero budget, the duo decided to partnerships with some studios as Icon explained, “According to an artiste’s budget, we are so sure that he/she can get an amazing project/song. We have a partnership with High Way Music, Kigali Records, and Unlimited Records. All these studios give a discount of 50% off per song to our artistes. With Excellent Music, we cater for Video production since it is our field of operation.” The duo started in the beginning of 2022 and they revealed that they mostly focus on helping the upcountry artistes. So far, Producer Padu from High Way Music, Producer Odilo from Unlimited Records, and Heavykick from Kigali Records are their go-to people and they are so thankful to them. In total, six artistes have benefited from Excellent Music Group. Four of them have been sharing their projects with music lovers. One of them is King Star who released ‘Tonight’, as well as two other artistes, Hope Future who recorded ‘Me & You’, ‘In Love’ and ‘Jetri’. Genius Timba also released ‘Ndora’. Born Emmanuel Kwihanga-Genius, Timba said that within a very short time, the duo has been doing well enough. “When I came to know Excellent Music Group, I thought that they were just lying and when I finally managed to work with them, it was too good to be true. It was my very first song and they gave me the promised discount and the final project was lit. I am so grateful to them for all they are doing to support the young talents.” 24-year old Icon Muzika, was born and raised in Gicumbi District, Northern Province. In 2019, he started doing music and is now learning more about videography. His counterpart, director Kamu, 19, was raised in Kimisagara. He is now in Senior 6 where he is pursuing MEG (Mathematics, Economics, and Geography). Apart from that, he does video production. The two met due to their passion for music.
