Liza Kamikazi’s foray into gospel music

When she started frequenting the stage to sing, Liza Kamikazi realized that she needed a stage name that sounded “quite extra ordinary and Solange is quite common so I had to look for something different”. Kamikazi’s birth names are Umuhire Solange Liza. So how then did she become a Liza Kamikazi, a stage name that would easily pass off as one’s given name? “This Kamikazi thing had kept coming up in some of the songs I’d done before so eventually I chose to become Kamikazi Liza,” she explains, adding that “Kamikazi means small princess.” Kamikaze is one of the clean-cut female Afro-fusion artistes on the Kigali music circuit. Rahira (swear), Usiniache (don’t leave me), Nkiri muto (when I was young), and Urumuri Rw’u Rwanda are some of the better known titles from her stable. She describes her style as “music that marries various African rhythms with modern music.” A new beginning: The singer has been off the music scene for some while, leaving fans wondering if she’d flown out or quit singing. I met her early this year, when she called me to cover an event organized by the Kigali Library Services where she works as the Outreach and Program Coordinator. She was heavy with her third child, so it was obvious music was a no-no. Going gospel: Now that she is well out of labor, it’s back to the musical grind, only this time it’s with new orientation. Ndaje data (I’m coming home dad) is her latest song and it’s quite a hit, although she only put it out two weeks ago. It is gospel, actually her first gospel effort. The singer reveals that fans should expect more songs from the gospel stable. “Ndaje data is a prayer that I started saying in 2014 when I had my revival. I started going to God and I’d feel that song in my heart. I’d start singing it, and as I sung it, I felt that it was opening a way for me to feel free to talk to God.” “I never thought I’d record it because I kept going back to God with the same song. It’s only this year that I realized it’s actually very selfish of me to have a song that blesses me and I never share it with the audience. So I went to studio and recorded the song, hoping that it would bless people the same way that it has blessed me. It’s just a heart that is yearning for a relationship with God, a song that says here I am, God.” She explains that the song came out of a different form of energy and inspiration than her previous songs: “It’s not a song that I sat down and wrote. The difference with the other songs I’ve done is that usually I’d sit down purposely to write a song. So the difference is that although these are still my thoughts, they are inspired by the Holy Spirit.” “I have had a shift in my personal life relating to my faith so after finding my identity in music I also found my identity as a person and went gospel so now it’s not just Afro-fusion,” she further reveals. “So my gospel music will be having an identity of who I am as an African but at the same time also having a touch that is modern.” She reveals that the journey started in 2014. “I had a personal revival and I’d say God really visited me. I was in this journey where I was asking myself what am I here for and if I was really doing what God created me for. It’s from that journey I discovered that I shouldn’t always ask God to bless what I want but rather I should ask him what he wants from me, what his plans for me are.” At her church (New Life Bible Church in Kicukiro), she is part of the worship team. “I worship as part of the congregation for now, but very soon I will be worshipping with the team on the altar and if all goes well by next year I plan to be having my own worship concerts where people can come and worship with me.” Kamikazi fell in love with music at about five years of age. By age eight she had joined a church choir in Butare where she grew up. After high school she started making her own music. She was heavily influenced by such Rwandan folk music icons as Cecile Kayirebwa, Kamaliza, and Muyango. “I listened to their music a lot, and when you listen to my own songs you can trace a little bit of these musicians in them.” She reveals. She recorded her first song while studying Journalism and Mass Communication at the then National University in Butare. “I would come to Kigali to record and then I’d have the songs aired on radio and slowly by slowly I started to make a career out of it.” Luckily, she had all the moral support from family; “My parents were very encouraging, especially my mother. I mention this a lot because I know that a lot of aspiring female musicians face opposition from their families as compared to the boys. My mum is my best fan. She loves my music and every time before I even release a song I sing it for her and check the Kinyarwanda vocabulary and after recording I’d play it for her to see what she thinks and she has always been very encouraging up to now. She reveals that her musical journey so far has been “a blessing to my life, because there were things that I thought of as a dream when I was young and they became reality. I didn’t think it was possible to have a song and it’s playing on radio but it happened. Not only that but I was also able to share my music with so many people in Rwanda and even outside the country. I’ve had concerts both in Rwanda and abroad, my music is online and I’ve met so many people because of it. In fact I even met my own husband through music. Music has been such a blessing to my life so it’s about time I gave back to God through worship.” She revels in the fact that though she never practiced journalism which she studied at university, she is still a communicator, both through music and her work as Outreach and Program Coordinator at the Kigali Library Services. “I develop different programs both inside and outside the library to reach out to those people who do not visit libraries. We have different programs where we take books to people like in hospitals, prisons, we go to different schools in Kigali, we go the veterans’ village in Kanombe, we also work with children who are just from the street and here at the library we have different activities for children like painting and story-telling.” Beyond that she also coordinates community libraries across the country and provides support by organizing trainings for them and visiting them to assess their work on site. “There is wisdom in books, even though it is not so much in our culture to read. There’s wisdom, knowledge, entertainment and answers to different questions. But I’d say there’s been a growth in numbers of people getting interested, especially the children because we hope that once we cultivate the reading culture in children then there’s hope for the future because it’s more difficult to change an adult’s attitude.” Her parting shot to fans: “I wouldn’t promise too much but I believe the best is yet to come because if some people liked what I was doing on my own, they will like what God has a hand in even more.” editorial@newtimes.co.rw

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Liza Kamikazi’s foray into gospel music