OLIVIER TUYISENGE best known as Umusizi Tuyisenge, last week released his debut album dubbed ‘Inkuru y’Ikimenamutwe,’ the first of kind. It contains poems that tackle Rwandan culture and social lives in general. “I named my album ‘Inkuru y’Ikimenamutwe’ which means ‘Untold Story’ because I wanted to inform those who hate poetry and culture that there is an untold story that they need to listen to,” Tuyisenge told The New Times. This made him the first Rwandan poet to do a poetry album. ‘Inkuru y’Ikimenamutwe’ is a 31-poem album and 24 of them are brand new while the remaining seven have been out before the album got released. However, those seven were renewed due to the fact that their prior production quality wasn’t that good. The poems on the album are about social topics, cultural topics, and there are other three poems about the Commemoration of the 1994 Genocide Against Tutsi. The 26-year-old who discovered his talent at the age of 12 when he was in primary five, declared that he wanted to create some uniqueness and so he decided to do something that has never happened way before in the Rwandan arts industry. In the album, he honored the Rwandan culture and urged every country person to be proud of their culture and language as well. He added, “I actually made this album to show people all over the world that ‘Poetry’ deserves crown like any other type of arts. Not only that, but I also wanted to show Rwandans that there is a hidden treasure in their language, Kinyarwanda. In addition to that, I wanted to teach society about some different interesting topics they got confused about.” When asked what he thinks of Rwandans when it comes to listening to poems he replied, “Rwandans didnt listen to poetic pieces before, but I hope this is the right time for them to get used to it and I strongly believe that they will be interested in listening to mine and so they will buy the album.” Apart from one poem dubbed ‘Let Me Give You This Flower’ which is a collabo with Dr. Andrea Grieder, a Swiss Poetess the remaining poems were recorded in Kinyarwanda.
