RWANDAN RAPPER, Racine recently released his debut album, ‘RWA HipHop’ which he describes as his way of showcasing the Rwandan HipHop as a very strong industry that deserves enough respect.

Born Thierry Kamatari, the singer, songwriter and actor started his music career in 2017 and five years later he has released his debut album dubbed ‘RWA HipHop’.

"I wanted to explain Rwandan HipHop as a strong industry that deserves much respect. I felt like naming it after my motherland, an amazing country that also has rappers who do it well in the Kinyarwanda language,” Racine told The New Times.

The 13-song album was premiered on September 9 on the artiste’s YouTube Channel ‘Racine Rwanda’ and is now available on YouTube, iTunes, Spotify, Deezer, Boomplay, Apple Music and Amazon.

Regarding his music career, Racine shared that although he has never had any management to support him, his music is getting reception from his fans.

"I appreciate where I am so far. I have a very strong fan base though I don’t appear in so many concerts since it is hard to work without a management team to support you.”

The album is composed of 13 new songs: ‘Intro_Rwahiphop’, ‘Interlude’ ft Prime Mazimpaka’, ‘No name’, ‘Kamatari’, ‘Kwa Gihanga’, ‘Umwuzukuru’, ‘Nkawe’ ft Symphony, ‘Ibugande’, ‘Ikanzu’ ft (Glory Majesty, Ish Teachy, Marcelo Messenger, Umutagatifu Utazwi), ‘Wait for Me’, ‘Story’, ‘MoM’, ‘Leta/Letter/Reta’.

He added that he started working on this album in 2021.

"The journey was too hard for me as an independent artist. It isn’t easy to do the whole album without any support. But like every artist has a dream of making an album, I was so excited to do so and now I am glad that I really made it possible.”

Of all the songs on this album, his favourite is ‘No Mane’ while ‘Agahungu’ is his first ever song as well as his all-time favourite in the other 13 single tracks that Racine released from 2017. Apart from his own songs, he has so far written more than 1,000 songs for other local artistes.

The album producers are; Kozze, Bailey Pro, Logic Hit, Kina Beat, The Major and Master Beat.