ALL MUSICIANS thrive on some kind of inspiration to come up with the music that we eventually know them for. What is inspiration? Well, inspiration is some sort of tiny insect, as tiny and as nimble as a female anopheles mosquito. Inspiration operates in much the same way as a mosquito does, at least in as far as the way it approaches its “client.” Just like a mosquito, inspiration lands on the artiste, then goes. And, just like the mosquito, inspiration may land and take off without its recipient, the musician taking notice. Sometimes, like you have tried to hit that fat, stupid mosquito and missed it by a whisker, a musician tries to “catch” inspired feelings but misses narrowly. That is why you have heard musicians say they had this beautiful idea that they “forgot” because they didn’t scribble it down. Other times, however, the musician nails down the inspiration, otherwise we would not have had music to talk about in the first place. That point at which a musician takes charge of the inspiration he just got can be compared to the act of killing a mosquito that landed on your forehead. It is the action that the musician takes on this inspired idea that finally results into a song. And inspiration does not come calling from afar. Inspiration surrounds real musicians everywhere they may be. The music pro that I am, I have got this uncanny ability to tell what kind of circumstances inspired a particular song just even by casually listening to it. Case in point: There is an old Reggae song, much more popular among my Kenyan than Rwandan friends, that is titled; You’ve got to let me go now. In the song, the singer sings; “you’ve got to let me go now, let me go to work …” etc etc. It is obvious that the woman he is pleading with is his side mistress (that is a more polite reference as compared to “side dish”). It seems that the said mistress had held tightly onto him, like glue, way after he had thoroughly quenched his you-know-what. How do I know it was a mistress involved and not his wife? Because it is a known fact that most musicians keep a trail of mistresses. Why mince words like people visiting in-laws? Singer Jules Sentore is a man whose music I did not see reason to care about, until, that is, he penned the wedding anthem, Udatsikira. Listening to Udatsikira, I knew immediately where the inspiration for it had found him: it was while he performed at one of those posh weddings in Nyarutarama or Gaculiro or Kimihurura or Kiyovu. Inspiration for Udatsikira did not come as Sentore performed at that event I attended in Nyami-Juice …oops, Nyamirambo a while ago. On the contrary, Nyamirambo is where DJ Pius or whoever penned Kanda Amazi got the song’s inspiration from.
