Category: Entertainment

Now, the rising comedian is setting his sights beyond Rwanda’s borders.

Having established himself as one of the standout performers on Kigali’s popular Gen-Z Comedy platform, Muhinde is increasingly performing in English as part of a broader ambition to reach audiences across East Africa and eventually on the global comedy stage.

“It wasn’t really about leaving Kinyarwanda behind; it was about realising that I could do both,” Muhinde told IGIHE, emphasising that performing in English does not mean abandoning the Kinyarwanda roots that helped shape his career.

The comedian, who recently completed his studies at Rwanda Polytechnic in Musanze, believes performing in English is a necessary step if he is to take Rwandan comedy to international audiences.

“Over the years, we’ve invited international comedians to Rwanda, and some of them have been willing to share their platforms and opportunities with us. That made me realise that if I want to reach international audiences and grow beyond Rwanda, I need to be able to perform in English as well,” he explained.

Muhinde’s journey into comedy began long before he stepped onto a professional stage. Born on April 10, 2003, he grew up entertaining friends, neighbours, and family members with his natural ability to find humour in everyday situations.

He credits Rwandan comedy pioneer Babu Joe as one of his earliest inspirations.

“I used to make everyone laugh and leave them in stitches. Anywhere you could find me, people around were always laughing,” he recalled.

That talent eventually led him to perform at a show organised by Babu before joining Gen-Z Comedy in 2022, where he quickly became one of the platform’s most recognisable young comedians.

His rise, however, was not without challenges.

While building his comedy career, Muhinde was also pursuing higher education in Musanze, often travelling between Musanze and Kigali to perform.

“The hardest part was when comedy shows happened on the same days as exams or important classes. There were times when I had to make difficult decisions and manage my time very carefully,” he said.

Those sacrifices paid off on May 28, 2026, when he headlined the highly anticipated “Graduation Comedy Special” at Camp Kigali, a show organised by his mentor Fally Merci to celebrate both his academic achievement and his growth as a comedian.

The event marked a symbolic transition from student comedian to a performer with regional ambitions.

Although performing in English presents new challenges, Muhinde says he has invested significant time in improving his craft through workshops, preparation and learning from experienced comedians.

One lesson that has transformed his performances is learning to think directly in English rather than translating jokes from Kinyarwanda.

“If you’re going to perform comedy in another language, you need to think in that language. If you think in your native language and then translate the joke later, it can lose its rhythm, meaning and impact,” he said.

Known for his crowd work and roasting skills, Muhinde acknowledges that performing outside Rwanda will require adaptation, especially in front of audiences unfamiliar with local celebrities and cultural references.

“When performing for an international audience, I know I can’t rely on references to Kigali celebrities or local inside jokes. That’s why research becomes very important,” he noted.

Despite those adjustments, he believes Rwandan comedy has something unique to offer international audiences.

“What makes our humour unique is our perspective and the way we tell stories,” he said. “I’ve learned how to turn my struggles, challenges and even things people might see as weaknesses into comedy. People connect with that because it’s honest.”

For now, Muhinde’s immediate focus is East Africa.

Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania top his list of countries where he hopes to perform, with Uganda holding special significance due to his connections with the country’s vibrant comedy scene through collaborations with Comedy Store Uganda.

“My goal is to grow across East Africa first before expanding to other international stages,” he said.

To accelerate that journey, Muhinde is increasingly relying on digital platforms. He has begun performing regularly at English-language comedy events in Rwanda and plans to use recordings from those shows to build a presence on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.

“Social media is one of the most important tools I have for reaching international audiences,” he explained.

Looking ahead, Muhinde sees himself becoming an internationally recognised comedian within the next two to three years. Among his goals are releasing his first English-language comedy special and representing Rwanda on stages abroad.

But his ambitions extend beyond personal success.

“My ultimate dream is not only to build a successful career for myself but also to create opportunities for others,” he said. “I would love to have my own comedy show that gives a platform to young comedians, helping them showcase their talent and grow in the industry.”

For a comedian whose career began with jokes among friends and neighbours, the journey from Kigali to the international stage may still be unfolding. Yet with a growing audience, an expanding English-language repertoire, and clear ambitions beyond Rwanda’s borders, Muhinde appears determined to prove that Rwandan comedy can resonate far beyond home.

Meaning “to rise” in Latin, Orior is both a title and a philosophy. It reflects Dube’s ongoing exploration of identity, African womanhood, and self-actualisation through a lens shaped by theatre, poetry, performance, and design. The EP follows a steady stream of singles, including Oasis and Uthando, but it arrives as her most complete artistic statement to date, one that extends far beyond music into a fully realised audiovisual experience.

At its core, Orior is a meditation on becoming rather than arriving.

“Orior is the conversation I needed to have with myself before I could have it with anyone else,” Dube explains. “It’s about what it means to become—not arriving, but the rising itself. I wanted to make something that felt true to where I’m from, who I am, and who African women are: creators, dreamers, and doers.”

For Dube, the EP is not just a project but a reflection of process, a way of organising thought, memory, and intention into form.

“I wanted something to reflect and contemplate on,” she says. “A project I can dedicate my time and resources to, where my subconscious meets my conscious mind. It becomes an investment into my future, and a part of my identity.”

Beyond the roles assigned

That sense of intentional self-definition runs through Orior, which challenges the inherited expectations placed on African women and asks what happens when those roles are questioned or refused.

Across its five tracks, Dube explores fear, desire, self-worth, lineage, and emotional honesty. But the underlying thread is clear: the pressure to perform identities that were never self-chosen, and the courage it takes to step outside them.

“The title translates to ‘to rise’, and the first track feels like my womanifesto,” she says. “We’re often playing roles that we didn’t choose. The question is: how do we break free from that?”

That opening track, Hinc Orior, sets the tone. An Afrofuturist blend of spoken word, broken disco, and EDM influences, it positions African women at the center of cultural creation and not as subjects, but as origin points.

From there, Kairos, featuring Rwandan artist Chacha Imfurekeye, reflects on timing and self-trust, confronting the anxiety of comparison and the illusion of being “behind” in life. The collaboration also signals the EP’s broader pan-African dialogue, connecting Zimbabwean and Rwandan creative perspectives through a shared sonic language.

A growing voice on major stages

Dube’s emergence is not limited to studio recordings. She carried immense momentum into 2026 following her standout milestone appearance at the 2025 Basketball Africa League (BAL) opening ceremony. At the BK Arena, she delivered a striking multidisciplinary performance that fused spoken word, Afro-soul, and intense choreography.

She returned to BAL stage for this 6th season with Mashirika Performing Arts to co-create and perform a song under this year’s theme, “Rise with The Game”. Performing alongside a large ensemble of contemporary dancers and contortionists, she transformed the arena into an immersive theatrical space, a live extension of the same thematic principles that define Orior.

The performance established her presence within some of the continent’s most visible cultural platforms, reinforcing her reputation as a boundary-crossing performer who treats live stages and recorded tracks as part of the same continuum. For Dube, such moments are a commitment to art as a lived experience rather than isolated output.

Sound, language and intimacy

Elsewhere on Orior, Dube shifts between intimacy and assertion. Songbird, performed in Ndebele, is one of the EP’s most personal moments, a spoken-word infused reflection rooted in ancestral memory and linguistic identity.

In contrast, DioR, featuring Rwandan rapper thedicekid, delivers sharp alt-R&B and hip-hop energy. Built on a proven collaborative chemistry forged across past joint projects, the track centres on self-worth, boundaries, and emotional sovereignty, presenting a woman fully aware of her value and unwilling to negotiate it away.

The EP closes with Roleplay, a darker, more vulnerable track that confronts people-pleasing and emotional self-erasure. It is here that Orior reaches its emotional core: the recognition that survival often involves shrinking, and that liberation begins with refusing to do so.

“It’s about recognising patterns, naming them, and choosing to restrict access rather than play small,” Dube says.

Kigali, collaboration and creative expansion

While Orior is deeply personal, it is also shaped by place. Dube credits Kigali’s evolving creative ecosystem with expanding her understanding of collaboration and artistic community.

“Rwanda’s creative scene is growing into a hub for collectives,” she says. “It has opened me up to believe in art as a communal practice.”

Her work with groups such as Mashirika Performing Arts and The Circle Kigali, which she co-founded as an artists’ healing space, reflects her belief that creativity can function as both expression and repair.

That philosophy extends into her conceptual framework, which she calls “The Afrosensual”, a practice rooted in intuition, sensory awareness, and African indigenous knowledge systems. It is an approach that heavy-hitting tracks like Roleplay and Songbird translate directly into raw sonic energy. 

“It explores returning to our senses in an overstimulating world,” she explains. “It’s about learning to trust the body again, what triggers it, what soothes it, and what it knows before language intervenes.”

A debut built on becoming

Orior resists the framing of a traditional debut. Rather than signalling arrival, it reflects an ongoing process of self-discovery and artistic formation. Dube, who serves as writer, executive producer, and co-producer across the EP, describes the experience as both grounding and revealing.

“Seeing the ideas come to life made me realise how much I believe in myself,” she says. “Whether the world liked it or not, I was going to be proud of what I created.”

For her, success is not measured by numbers or immediate recognition, but by resonance, whether listeners can see fragments of their own experiences within the music.

“I hope people genuinely connect with the subject matter and the musicality,” she says. “I want it to inspire people to build their dreams too.”

As Orior prepares for release, it positions itself as both an invitation and an interruption, a reminder that African women are not waiting to become anything. They are already rising, continuously, beyond the roles assigned to them.

According to a family statement, Bryson passed away on Tuesday evening “surrounded by the love of his family and those closest to him.” He had recently suffered a stroke and was hospitalised earlier in May 2026. The singer also previously survived a heart attack in 2019.

Born Robert Peapo Bryson in 1951 in Greenville, South Carolina, he began performing professionally as a teenager, first singing backup for local acts before launching a solo career in the mid-1970s. His smooth tenor voice and emotional delivery quickly made him a standout in R&B music.

Bryson rose to prominence with hits such as “Reaching for the Sky,” “Feel the Fire,” and “Can You Stop the Rain,” becoming a regular presence on R&B radio and earning a reputation for romantic ballads and powerful duets.

He became especially well known for his collaborations with female vocalists. Among his most celebrated partnerships was with Roberta Flack, producing hits including “Tonight, I Celebrate My Love,” which became one of his signature songs.

Bryson later achieved global fame through his contributions to Disney soundtracks. His duet with Céline Dion on “Beauty and the Beast,” from Beauty and the Beast, became a worldwide hit and won a Grammy Award. The song also won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

He went on to record another iconic duet, “A Whole New World,” with Regina Belle for Aladdin. The song became a defining moment in Disney music history and also earned Grammy recognition, cementing Bryson’s status as one of the most recognisable voices in film soundtracks.

Over his career, Bryson released around 20 studio albums and received multiple Grammy nominations. His voice became synonymous with romantic storytelling in both R&B and cinematic music.

In a statement, his family said they were deeply moved by the global outpouring of love, adding that while they are grieving, they find comfort in the legacy he leaves behind. “His voice and his generous spirit touched countless lives,” the statement read.

Bryson is survived by his wife, Tanya Boniface, and his children. His music, especially his Disney classics, is expected to continue resonating with audiences for generations.

The world-famous rap artist performed in Türkiye for the first time, drawing an estimated 118,000 fans to one of Istanbul’s largest live music venues. The concert, organised in collaboration with NTRteam, attracted a highly international audience, with attendees travelling from across Türkiye as well as the United Kingdom, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Russia, Poland, the Middle East and other regions.

Long before West took the stage, the stadium was already packed, with fans filling both stands and pitch areas hours ahead of the performance. The anticipation reflected the scale of the event, which was widely presented as one of Istanbul’s biggest music moments of the year.

West opened the night with “Father,” immediately setting a reflective tone before moving through a catalogue of some of his most recognisable hits. His setlist included fan favourites such as “Power,” “Flashing Lights,” “Heartless,” “Runaway,” “Black Skinhead,” “Homecoming,” “King” and “All The Love.” He closed the concert with “Stronger,” bringing the two-hour performance to a high-energy finish.

The show was staged on a spherical platform, echoing designs previously seen in his Los Angeles SoFi Stadium productions. The setup was enhanced by intense lighting effects, fog bursts and synchronised visuals that transformed the venue into a globe-lit spectacle visible across the stadium.

As the performance unfolded, thousands of fans illuminated the arena with their phone lights, adding another layer to the atmosphere and turning the crowd into part of the visual design.

The concert also drew a number of well-known Turkish public figures, including actors Şükrü Özyıldız, Alina Boz, Nilperi Şahinkaya, Hazar Ergüçlü, Yasemin Allen, Afra Saraçoğlu and Aslı Tandoğan, alongside Ayşe Tolga, Umut Evirgen, singer Elif Buse Doğan and Burak Kut.

Beyond the stadium experience, the show reached a global digital audience after being streamed live on Kanye West’s official YouTube channel, attracting millions of viewers within minutes and extending the reach of the Istanbul performance far beyond the venue itself.