Cécile Kayirebwa

**Cécile Kayirebwa** (born 22 October 1946) is a Rwandan singer. She brought her family up in Belgium, but she has toured and published albums. She is known for singing about Rwanda. She sued Rwandan radio stations in 2013 for failing to pay her royalties.

Kayirebwa was born in Kigali in 1946. Both of her parents were enthusiastic singers and she would sing pop songs that she had heard sung by Johnny Hallyday, Stevie Wonder and France Gall. She joined a group who were broadcast by Radio Rwanda whilst she was still a child. She had a happy childhood and she trained to become a welfare officer. Meanwhile her singing developed into composing where she built on her study of traditional Rwandan music. She notably wrote songs in praise of the Rwandan Queen Rosalie who was a benign ruler.

Kayirebwa was invited to sing for her Queen, but in 1973 war broke out in her country and she left with her mother to live in Belgium. They lived in Lozère, where her mother lived with a French soldier and she became fluent speaking and singing in French. She was a member of a group called Iyange for five years. In Europe she continued to work as a singer to her fellow members of the Rwandan diaspora. She and her husband had four children and she studied her cultural heritage at the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren. She appeared around Europe and America in the group Bula Sangoma in the mid 1980s and they created an album in 1985.

In 1988 she returned home too late to be reunited with her mother who died in Rwanda just before she arrived. She sang her song about happiness which was titled "Umunezero" and the song was said to be popular with the Rwandan Patriotic Front.

## Links to Kershaw

Kershaw in an interview with Wanderlust in 2011 mentioned how he discovered the singer in Rwanda when he was travelling with the RPF (Rwanda Patriotic Front) as a journalist:

> *"I’ll never forget at a road block in Rwanda – an RPS  roadblock, the rebels, the good guys who stopped the genocide. I was travelling with the RPS, so when we came up to the roadblock they all piled out. They were exchanging information with the guys manning this barrier and the whole country was still and silent. One of these lads had a ghetto blaster and he started playing Cecile Kayirebwa. It was the spookiest thing I've ever heard."* [1]
>
>

The song which Cecile Kayirebwa was playing by the RPF was Umunezero, which later became one of Andy Kershaw's all time favourite songs. The song was played as part of his Desert Island Discs sequel on his 12 March 2007 show.

## Live

Recorded at the 2001 WOMAD Festival. First Broadcast: 27 July 2001

1. unknown tracks

## Other Shows Played

   1994
* 07 May 1994: Umulisa (CD - Rwanda) Globe Style
* 21 May 1994: Umunezero (CD - Rwanda) Globe Style
* 25 December 1994: Umunezero (CD - Rwanda) Globe Style

2001
* 20 July 2001: Umunezero (Happiness) (CD - Rwanda) Music From Rwanda
* 14 December 2001: None Twaza (CD - Amahoro (Paix Peace)) Etna

2004
* 11 April 2004: Umunezero (CD - Rwanda) Globe Style

2005
* 20 March 2005: Umunezero (CD - Rwanda) Globestyle

2007
* 12 March 2007: Umunezero (album - Rwanda) Globe Style

## External Links

* Wikipedia
* Discogs

## References

1. ↑ This is more likely to be referring to the RPF.