At just the age of eight, Santos Credo Gihoza was already expressing his love and talent for singing, and was into genre of RNB until he switched to Gakondo music.

The inspiration, he said, came from listening to music, especially traditional songs, legends like Cyprien Rugamba and Annonciata Mutamuriza, also known as Kamaliza, and to some extent, his mother played a role too in making him fall in love with this kind of music.

"Because of my mother's love for Gakondo music and her wish for me to do it, with time, I found myself switching from RNB to Gakondo. She started teaching me how to sing and this is where I found myself loving it so much," he said.

His other reason for switching genres, he said, was that he did not want the old traditional music to fade away and so he started thinking of ways to keep these legends’ legacy.

Keeping the memory alive

As a young person, he said pursuing this style of music is not easy, but it was important for him because he realised that he wanted to express and share his message through this genre.

Besides, he further noted, looking at music locally, there is a big gap when it comes to the Gakondo genre as most artistes are venturing into the western style of music.

"I wanted to also walk hand in hand with other artistes who are doing that genre and maintain its originality even though our ancestors passed away. I still believe that this genre of Gakondo plays a big role in our lives because it mainly talks about tips of our culture and the way of living and interacting with others in Rwandan society," he added.

For the undergraduate Accounting student at Adventist University of Central Africa, although it's hard convincing other young people to do Gakondo music, "through learning, and from my experience, there are many talented youngsters who can do this, only if they get to understand how important it is to go tradition as far as music is concerned.”

"The good thing about this genre is that it talks and exposes our culture worldwide and we all know that a country which doesn't have a culture diminishes," he added.

Moving forward, last year in August, Gihoza released his first debut song known as "Mutako utanaze". His other song titled "Inteko ya sogokuru ' was released last month.

His future plans are to keep the legacy of his country's culture and keep representing it worldwide through music.