RWANDAN MODEL and singer Colette Gatete, known as Diamond Diva, is set to release a new song on July 2 dubbed “Nishike” as part of an upcoming album that will drop in December this year. “Nishike is a Swahili word that is loosely translated as ‘hold me’ and the song is a love ballad. It was made by three producers,” Gatete says. According to the singer, the song is her 5th and she is working on more. In an interview with The New Times she says, “Modelling, among other things here, helps me to get money I need to do music and, I have a clothing shop in Kigali known as ‘Coco Fashion’. “Nishike cost me a lot of money, as the audio was produced by three creators, and the video was also quite costly. “The video cost more than USD 6000, I paid the video producer about 4,000 but that does not include dancers, costumes and other clothes, transport, and et cetera, here you pay for everything in the video,” she says. “The gentleman and lady I used in the video cost me USD 1,500, which shows how things are expensive if you need to do a standard video,” she adds. Talking about her album, she says that “Nishike” is one of 12 songs on her coming album dubbed ‘Spray the Love’. There are five collabos with Rwandan stars and one with a Ugandan. The pandemic, she says, disrupted her plans, especially with the collabo with the Ugandan artiste, but she hopes that by December, her plans will have worked out. “We do Rwandan music because we love it, not because there is a lot of money to make from it over here. I sometimes organise shows but being a foreigner makes it hard because Chinese culture is strong,” she says. The artiste says that in China, there are many venues for shows but afro-beat is not a favourite for now. “I am working on many projects that differ from music, but I need to organise some music shows back home when this pandemic allows us to do so. “I will start with ‘Diva’s Weekend’ which will take place by a lake in Rwanda. This can be done at the end of every month and there are shows that will be annual, consisting of many artistes, especially top musicians, but of course, all this will depend on the Covid situation,” she says. Asked about how local artistes can promote themselves on a wider scale, she says Rwandan musicians should embrace collaborations amongst themselves to first of all build a strong local fan base. “Our musicians need to give Tanzania and Naija a run for their money, but this can only happen if we boost our own music; it will be difficult to get our music to the top if they can’t work together. I recommend building a strong partnership as Rwandan musicians. “I love music and I started doing it in 2018, it was the first time I entered a studio but producers weren’t too quick to work on my songs and that discouraged me. I released my first song in 2020.”
