Growing up in church, Mary Umutoni was exposed to music. She joined church choir at an early age after picking an interest in singing.

Thanks to the choir, Umutoni acquired vocal skills that later on, she started backing artistes in studios, but couldn’t release her own songs because of her fear of how the public would react to her music.

"I struggled with getting the confidence to release my songs because I didn’t know how the audience would receive them,” she said, adding that: "When you’re doing something different from what others are doing, you tend to have doubts about whether you’ll be successful or not.”

Umutoni, 28, finished her studies earlier this year at Mount Kenya University Rwanda in Mass Media and Communication.

In 2015, she got rid of the fear and embarked on a solo music career.

The artiste argued that she does not just pursue music as a hobby, but instead, through music, she found her life’s purpose.

Besides the challenge of lack of confidence that had hindered her from showing her potential to the world, the artiste also once lost her voice, which was one of her most challenging times in her career.

Six years ago, she began feeling discomfort in her throat. Talking became painful, and her attempt at singing only became excruciating.

The Gospel singer sought medical treatment, but nothing seemed to work because doctors could not identify exactly what the issue was.

She, therefore, sought specialists to check if there was any major concern and fortunately everything looked normal. However, she said, the pain persisted.

One day, she said, she decided to not allow the pain to rob her of her dream to become a singer. She wrote a song and booked a recording studio session.

The recording, she stated, was successful and with time the pain went away.

"What I learned from that is to not let anything scare me from pursuing my dream. With faith, all things are possible,” she shared.

Career aspirations

The artist has since released three songs; ‘Save me Jesus’, ‘Ubuzima’ and most recently ‘Merry Christmas’.

"I have many others that I am working on and will release them in the near future,” she explained.

Commenting on her new song ‘Merry Christmas’, Umutoni said that she drew inspiration from the fact that "As a Christian, Christmas is my favorite holiday as Jesus Christ’s birth symbolizes hope for humankind.”

The song, she underscored, also seeks to emphasize the need to rejoice and be happy regardless of the difficulties we all faced this year, mostly due to the COVID-19 pandemic among other reasons.

Concerning her dreams in music, the artist noted that she hopes "to uplift and encourage others through the gift of singing that God has given me.”