‘BIGOMBA GUHINDUKA’ comedy stars Japhet Mazimpaka and Etienne Iryamukuru, a.k.a Etienne 5K, have started releasing their comedy series into what they called ‘Comedy album’.
The duo who have established a name in the Rwandan comedy industry under their comedy concept ‘Bigomba Guhinduka’, released their first comedy album on Valentine’s Day as a special gift for lovers to celebrate their day in style.
Iryamukuru however told The New Times that dropping the comedy album wasn’t meant to only help couples to celebrate Valentine’s Day because the comedy package covers love in all perspectives.
"Although the idea was that a love comedy album would help lovers to celebrate Valentine’s Day well, people can still relate to this album because the jokes touch on every kind of love either between couples, children and parents, siblings or even friends,” Iryamukuru said.
He added that the comedy album is in no way different from musical albums and hinted that they can also take a day to launch their albums like artists do.
"Artistes inspired us to come up with this innovation. One day, we had a discussion, and we felt that if an artiste can do an Extended Play and an album for his/her songs why can’t we do the same in comedy? Our job is to make them happy through comedy,” he said.
He said he and his compatriot would have wished to perform for their audience on Valentine’s Day if public events hadn’t been temporarily banned to contain the spread of covid-19 and that the comedy album, not just one love joke, was the most important gift for their supporters, especially couples on their special day.
Valentine’s Comedy album marks the beginning of the duo’s ambition is to produce more albums either for celebrations on important days or to keep it as a new innovative way to entertain their audience during future comedy events.
"Our wish was to do the same album for Heroes Day but things didn’t work for us at the last minute. But it is a new innovation that we wish to embrace for our concept”
"We hope people won’t be surprised to see more albums coming because we have a lot of jokes to share with them under this new format. If this idea succeeds, we could produce more albums and then launch them during future comedy events or music album launches,” he said.
Japhet and 5K Etienne have formed a strong partnership in comedy and have since made a name in the local industry
The comedy album is one of ‘several’ innovations that the duo have in store for their audience and they look forward to expanding their comedy to another level in the coming days.