Meet Karimba, a sensational vocalist

Her music journey is as interesting as her vocals. Rosette Karimba’s presence at any event is the icing on cake. She has perfected her trade and little wonder she has become a household name. The sensational vocalist will perform alongside Kenyan instrumentalist Christine Kamau and the Neptunez Band at the upcoming Kigali Jazz Junction on Friday. Rosette Karimba’s music career, dates way back to 2003 as a member of the music Band ‘Cool family.’ She occasionally performed alongside the famous Daddy Cassanova, Mico Marcel and Lilian Mbabazi that introduced her to the music arena. It is during that time that the multi-talented Karimba, also joined Mashirika Performing Arts as a lead vocalist. It is at Mashirika, that she learnt choreography and writing songs after a number of performing tours. “With Mashirika they used to play songs composed by other African artists like Angelina Kidjo, until we thought it best to use the talented artists we have in Mashirika. That is when we started composing songs as Mashirika, for our plays.” Her songs are inspired by Mashirika’s tale of society issues, and lessons from Mashirika’s founder, Hope Azeda. “In any pieces that Hope writes, it touches us all in some way. I take what touches me and include in the song. The rhythm of the songs come with a happy ending because we want our plays to have a happy ending with afro music jazz, soul and we dance along. In some instances where we need expression of anger and sadness or smiling and hope, the rhythm says it all.” She has lost count of the number of songs that she has composed, but plans to put together all Mashirika’s songs in a music album. Karimba teamed up with three other girls, Tony Chery, Samantha and Alyn Sano, from Burundi and Gabon to set up the ‘Blue Note Band’ that performs majorly Afro Jazz music. She describes her music style as more of jazz blue soul and sometimes mixes her music style with all kinds of African instrumentals like the Rwandan Inanga, to emphasize the originality of the afro beat. “What I see in Rwanda now is that we are all going in afro beats, with the young generation. I’m glad we are singing in Kinyarwanda but the songs are not original enough, as a girl group that is what we are trying to do because African jazz comes from Inanga and other African instruments,” she says. Her band is currently working with Pastor P on their music album that will soon be released. editorial@newtimes.co.rw

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Meet Karimba, a sensational vocalist