Mevis and Godwin are a young music duo who began singing as fresh graduates from college. Real names, Godwin Ugochukwu, and Herve Germain Dusabimana, aka Mevis, the 27 and 21 olds respectively, met at Dream Studios, where they had gone to do separate projects. It is then that it clicked that they could actually do better as a duo. As afro beat singers, their main motivation stemmed from the fact that Ugochukwu, originally from Nigeria, would complement their music with a touch of his Nigerian culture, while Dusabimana would fuse in Kinyarwanda. Ugochukwu came to Rwanda in 2015, when he was enrolled at Mahatma Gandhi University, before he joined Mt. Kenya University where he completed with a degree in the medical laboratory last year. “From my teenage years, I have always wanted to pursue a career in music, but my parents wanted me to concentrate on my studies. After I completed my Bachelor’s degree, I decided to pursue my passion, and luckily they (parents) have been very supportive,” he says. Like Ugochukwu, Dusabimana also had to obey his parents’ orders and upon completion of his course in construction, he decided to pursue music. Coming from different backgrounds, the two can complement each other, with Dusabimana singing in Kinyarwanda and Ugochukwu singing in one of the Nigerian languages. Their first single titled Turambane was released last year, with both Ugochukwu singing in English and Dusabimana in Kinyarwanda. To push their music further, they decided to do collabos with renowned artistes in Rwanda. “Our first project turned out well and we decided to collaborate with Mr Kagame and we released our song Tayali. Recently, we released another collabo Uwawe, with Tom Close and the video is also out,” Dusabimana said. As a big fan of Tom Close, Dusabimana adds that they partly attribute their success so far to the singer, who has been their mentor, guiding them to become better artistes. Ugochukwu reveals that their biggest challenge, like many other young artistes, is their inability to finance their projects, the same reason they are currently managing their music themselves. “We believe that if we go past this challenge, other obstacles can be overcome, such as people not believing in you, not having a manager or parents not supporting us,” he says. The duo is currently planning to work on the video of their single Turambane, where they hope to fuse both cultures to create a bang. “I want to incorporate my Nigerian culture like the dances and dressing, while Mevis will add his own culture,” Ugochukwu said. On their future plans, Dusabimana adds: “We are young artistes but we want to be among the best afro beat artistes in this country. We want to work hard so we can show Rwandans our talents. We want to continue making good music.” editor@newtimesrwanda.com
