As time goes by, women have proven that ‘what a man can do, a woman can’. This also applies to the music industry, where some genres were previously solely done by their male counterparts. Angel Mutoni is one of the few promising female Hip-hop and R&B artistes in Rwanda. Her music is a blend of RnB-Hip-hop, with a fusion of Afrobeat. She is also a poetess. The 27-year-old was born in Uganda, and she was a little baby when her family moved back to Rwanda and then to Canada a few years later. Her stage name is Angell, as she wanted to be creative and there are so many people named ‘Angel’. Since she was around four years old, Angell would always say that she wanted to be a singer if someone asked her who she wanted to be when she grew up. But she was very shy, and did not do much singing then. She even considers her shyness one of the challenges she faced when she started singing. “It was something that I loved, and a lot of times when I would think of what I would do in the future, that would always be the first thing that I would imagine,” Angell Mutoni tells The New Times in an interview. She was born in an artistic family. Her father was a musician, and used to teach her music, and she developed an interest for it, at a very young age. “I grew up around a lot of music, and I think that influenced me,” she says. During high school, is when she started singing. She met people who were also interested in music, and did her best to pursue her passion. She recorded her first song right after she graduated from high school, and vowed to never stop composing. Although she performed in different choirs, Angell recorded her first single in 2012, followed by over 20 recorded songs available on YouTube, Spotify, SoundCloud, among others. Angell Mutoni’s lyrics mostly influenced by what she is feeling at the moment, because it is the best way for her to express what is on her mind. When it is a collaboration, it depends on what the other artist wants or what the song is about. She has had challenges in her music career, and still faces some. “As a girl, challenges were more like putting your foot down and be like ‘I know I am a girl but I don’t want to do this just because I am a girl’. When they tell you to do songs about love, or if you’re in a music video you should wear this. Those are some of the basic challenges that I had,” she says. However, she has also had some great experiences in her career, like when she was a finalist in Prix Découvertes – RFI. “It was so interesting because I had never expected it. And although I didn’t win, I was in the top 10 finalists,” Angell Mutoni explains. She recently released a song dubbed, ‘Pull Up’, a collaboration with DJ Toxxyk and Kivumbi King, and she thinks although it has been quite some time doing music, this is the time she is getting to herself. “I am a bit more aware of some things when it comes to the music industry, and so I think now I am ready to push myself to where I want to get; I want to work on an album, perform in so many festivals. In the next two or so years, I want to start touring around the globe. I want to be as global as possible, I don’t restrict myself,” she notes. Angell Mutoni also wants to work with many artists on projects, and also to push one art industry farther by being an example to other artistes, mostly girls. She urges the youth to focus on their vision and make sure they surround themselves with the right people who understand and support them. “With those two formulas I think you can do anything.” Angell Mutoni and her colleague got a grant from an international organisation, which they used to fund their collective called ‘Eclectic Nappy Heads Collective’ with a project called, “Girls in Music Tour Project”. They work with secondary schools to train students on how to write lyrics. Although they are facing challenges of not having enough commitment from some schools, they think the project will have a reasonable impact.
