YANNICK BOURCHAGA INEZA is a rising Rwandan rapper based in Belgium, who has struggled to make it in the music industry. From childhood, the 21-year-old has been a big fan of American rapper, Dwayne Michael Carter, aka ‘Lil Wayne’ that he knew the lyrics to his songs and could rapped along. The youngster soon began composing songs with his friends but never got a chance to record them due to lack of finances. However, his singing dream didn’t fade. In 2018, he did his first solo song “Focus”, after doing numerous collaborations in different studios, that didnt go viral. Today, Ineza now has eight songs namely; “Focus”, “Urugendo” featuring Mr.Gloire, “Ndanze”, “Just Go ft Credo Santos and Mr. Gloire and Pizzo, “Amafaranga”, “Muraho ft M-Lambert, “Kongwe”, “Hustle ft Reddkite”, and “Bene Ngango.” Locally the singer looks up to a rapper Riderman that his dream was to join his team Ibisumizi, but didn’t get a chance to. According to the youngster, doingmusic in Belgium isn’t too tough because there are producers and other local artists artistes to look up to, although the audience is different from the one back home. “The challenge I am still facing just like other Rwandan artistes in other countries is the lack of publicity for our songs. Most of the time we have to come back to the Rwandan media to help us market our songs especially those in Kinyarwanda,” Ineza states. He is also disappointed in producers who are unprofessional and end up producing low quality or fake music for the sake of money. “Other producers don’t release songs on time and even after paying them, they stop picking calls, thus producing a song past the agreed time. Also, producers in Belgium are like two times more expensive than the ones in Rwanda, yet I am still a student,” the rapper added. As he pursues music, he seeks to approach the new generation music because he believes that the music game has changed and promoters are changing how they do music and promotion methods. Even though, in his view, Rwandans haven’t understood rap music as some attach it to drug abuse, Ineza also believes that journalists ought to do more in promoting rap music like they do for other genres such as Afro-beat and RnB.
