Namibian artiste and music producer Gazza, real name Lazarus Shiimi, was recently in Rwanda with a delegation, and were seeking a partnership between the two countries in culture, tourism and music.

Gazza, who attended Transform Africa Summit 2019, registered his new company Rwanda-Namibia, toured different sites in the country for a gist of what the country has to offer.

"We came with a company, Habesha Africa, that connects African countries in terms of trade and culture but we changed the name to Rwanda-Namibia, a bridge between Rwanda and Namibia to help share culture, music and food but also explore opportunities in terms of business and tourism,” he explained.

"Apart from the invitation for the 2019 Transform Africa Summit,” he added, "what attracted me to this country is that Rwanda has been on everybody’s lips and even when I came here, I asked myself why we hear only good things about Rwanda even when the global economy is doing badly. As a team we came to check out how the economy is transforming.”

Bruce Intore, a Rwandan cultural entrepreneur and founder of Rock Events, said that the partnership would serve a great purpose for both countries in terms of music and cultural tourism.

"When they approached us I was glad to have a partner from a different country trying to explore our opportunities. We are also going to go to Namibia and see what we can gain from Namibia too so it’s a god idea since as a country we have always wanted to embrace change and learn new things,” he said.

Intore is also introducing Gazza to different Rwandan artistes, with hope that he will soon be releasing collaborations.

Gazza added that they are forming smart partnerships with some people in Rwanda and with his record label Gazza Music Production (GMP), where he works with several artistes and deejays and host events in Namibia he is hopeful that the partnership will enable them to expand and grow.

"We want to give Rwandan music identity because we don’t have a proper structure within the African music scene. We are manually getting there and this is one of the steps we have to take to push us forward. We want to let the world know that there are other talents in the world other than Nigeria and South Africa.

Our cultures, if we exchange them properly with guidance from the governments through youthful activities, the youth will go back open minded because there things we take for granted here but they are like gems to us,” he said.

Other specialties for Rwanda- Namibia, he said, will include refrigeration and cooling systems and have already identified local partners to work with.

"With art you cannot be boxed and you cannot decide how things happen because creativity is open and one source of freedom that we enjoy as artistes so this is why we are learning a lot from the people here.

We want to see how we can exchange specialties and transfer skill to help the two countries to move forward. We have already learned so much from each other. We are going to complement each other in our differences and celebrate on the similarities’” he said.

editor@newtimesrwanda.com