Fast-rising Rwandan traditional singer Clarisse Karasira has announced that she is planning to launch her debut album in December to celebrate her three-year music journey that she started in 2017. The album dubbed, ‘Inganzo y’Imitima’, is a compilation of 18 culture-inspired songs, which have gone on to become popular among Rwandan music enthusiasts. One of the singles on the album include her latest release, ‘Urukerereza’, which is a collaboration with afrobeat singer Mani Martin. The song, according to Karasira, encourages people to find a companion with whom they can share happiness with during their happy moments and comfort each other during hard times. The song, whose audio was produced by Kesho band and the video by Gerrard Kingsley, is Karasira’s first and only collaboration that appears on her first album and since she began her career as a singer and songwriter in 2017. “This is my first collaboration with another artiste. It took me time to decide on doing collaborations with other artistes because I wanted to first focus on building a true identity of my music through releasing singles to allow people to easily identify me with my music,” “It is such a great honour for me to have an artiste like Mani Martin to collaborate with,” the singer said in an interview. Karasira told The New Times that she would have launched the album in July, through a music tour during which she was expecting to have at least a performance in each of the country’s provinces where she was targeting to reach. The music tour, however, came to a halt as concerts are among the public gatherings temporarily banned to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus pandemic. “I had to postpone country, but I am now prepared to launch it no matter what conditions and I am confident people will love it,” she said. ‘Rwanda Shima’, ‘Gira Neza’, ‘Ntizagushuke’ are among popular songs that comprise Karasira’s first album ‘Inganzo y’Imitima’. Who is Clarisse Karasira? Born in Masaka, Kicukiro District in 1997, Karasira is the second in a family of six children. She started her music career in 2018 shortly after quitting journalism where she was a news anchor at Radio Flash, a local private radio station. The singer earlier in 2019 told The New Times that her music is inspired by legendary musicians Cecile Kayirebwa and Kamaliza, whom she says are her role models and borrows a leaf from them. In 2018, after a year into music, the singer was nominated for Best Culture and Traditional Artist of the year during the seventh edition of Salax Awards as she was chasing her first career prize. She, however, lost it to Mani Martin. Karasira is also a poet and a dancer in Ikobe, a five-member traditional ballet.
