Nyamirambo Comes Alive

originally published in Africa Review, Kenya

Kigali has gained quite a reputation. From the clean streets and wide boulevards, manicured lawns to quiet, peaceful nights, Rwanda is seemingly the opposite of everything it was ‘before,’ and everything many in the West know about it.

People have been coming back home. Droves of people, refugees for years, have returned, bringing their money and their aspirations to rebuild their country. They have set up shops, literally built homes, even opened restaurants.

But as Kigali’s reputation of serenity has grown, to some it has gone overboard. While Rwanda is clean and safe, some have also called it boring. Bars can close early, people don’t like loud music – in fact, after 8 PM, its not even allowed – and public gatherings are rare and rarer. One of the only parts of the city with a bit of noise and swagger is also considered the dirtiest and least desirable. Some people say that, apart from restaurants, pool halls and a couple seedy clubs, there’s not really that much to do.

That is changing.

Kigali’s signature Muslim neighborhood and oldest part of the city, Nyamirambo, has risen from the dust, leading a new charge in Kigali’s cultural edge, particularly the country’s burgeoning music scene.

Nyamirambo has long been known as one of Kigali’s most undesirable areas to live in. Poor, dangerous, and dirty, the neighborhood is known for its drug users, vagrants, and shaky nighttime security problems. But in the last year, new money has moved in, investing in a sleuth of trendy businesses that allow Nyamirambo to cater to more than just the backpacker.

The neighborhood has undergone a gentrification that, instead of boring it down, has brought legitimacy and money to the neighborhood’s edge. Nyamirambo is now home to boutique hotels, music shops, clothing stores, graffiti art, and Rwanda’s only movie theater.

You can see the art moving through the neighborhood even in the form of minibuses crawling down Nyamirambo’s busy street. Matatus painted in the colors and icons of East African music stars, basketball players, even with the faces of Rwanda’s most revered leaders. On the walls of churches and school, beautifully ordained murals are painted. The main road has been repaved. Senegalese, Malian, Uganda, and speciality lamb and pork joints have caught the attention of outsiders as well as locals.

An immaculate mosque built by Libya leader Muammar al-Gaddafi towers near the neighbor’s vastly popular soccer stadium. Nearby, the Hotel Africana hosts spas and massages and steam rooms. Nearby that, more and newer boutique hotels bring satellite television, thick duvets, and free wireless internet.

Now arguably the country’s first Chicken-specialty restaurant, brought in from Kenya, has arrived here with free delivery, virtually unheard of in the country.

An offshoot of one of Kigali’s fanciest Italian restaurants, Masaka Farms from Papyrus, has opened its second store ever in Nyamirambo also, offering capuccinos, baguettes and pizza. And, of course, the movie theater, showing French and English films, as well as Champions League matches. It is the fist modern movie theater in the country, and is houses a new, spotless business building.

But the most important gift Nyamirambo has given Rwanda is its music industry. While there are studios and musicians all over Kigali, bustling Nyamirambo has long been seen as its capital.

For years, most of the music heard on Rwandan radio stations came from Uganda, Kenya and the United States. There simply wasn’t a sustainable industry in Rwanda. There wasn’t enough money and the music traveled on USB flashdisk, not CDs or cassettes.

That has changed. Come to Rwanda now, and you will hear Kinyarwanda flowing over plucked guitar strings. Hip Hop songs give shout-outs to President Kagame, peace, and most commonly, Nyamirambo. Nyamirambo is its heart, where musicians meet, practice, and record, and where many of the country’s most popular stars were born and learned the trade.

Last year, Rwanda singer Alpha Dixon scooped a prestigious award and record contract with South Africa’s Gallo Records after winning an East African music competition. One of Rwanda’s newest reggae stars, Ras Banamungu is about to throw a concert for his newest album.

In a cool dark room near his family’s home in Nyamirambo, MugDido, one of Rwanda’s rising stars, speaks about his life.

“I was the lonely child of my parents,” he says, talking about how is interest in music grew. “I would fiddle around on the internet, listening to songs, hitting my hand against cardboard to keep beat.” But MugDido, whose raps are heard all over Kigali’s music stations now, says it was the company he kept and the town he knew that grew him into the musician he is today.

“Nyamirambo is a hot entertainment city, amazing people amazing life and my inspiration comes from hood life, struggle.”