Beatrice and I are heading to Serena Hotel, the top five-star hotel of Kigali. This evening, it is the venue of a concert we want to see. I think that we are too late as the concert is supposed to start at 7 pm and we arrive there half an hour later, but actually we are still too early. The big room is not even basically full. The audience is supposed to stand, but many are trying to get chairs. Some have been put up along the walls but more and more don’t want to wait standing and the organisers reluctantly hand over more and more chairs. Beatrice and I also manage to get two. The audience is very mixed. There are young adults and many men and women in Beatrice’s age, but also really young kids that came with their parents. I am surprised about that. The same concert was given the day before in the stadium and there the main star didn’t show up until 1 am. I hope we don’t have to wait that long because I didn’t eat since lunch and neither has Beatrice. Among the other guests, I feel extremely under-dressed. I expected to go home again to change before coming here, but now we came straight from the basketball match at the stadium. I hope that my skin and hair protects me.
At first, a DJ plays some songs to keep the audience awake, mainly songs that would be played in any mainstream German night club. Then, two young Rwandan artists come on stage to perform a few songs. They don’t really get any response from the audience, even when they try to encourage us to clap or wave our arms. Although I don’t particularly find them good and it sounds a lot like playback to me, I feel sorry for them. It is hard to perform in front of an audience that is so disinterested and not welcoming at all. The girl hurries down the stage before the last word is sung. The moderator doesn’t improve the atmosphere. ‘It is getting hot now’, he says when it is perfectly clear that that is not the case. He announces the next artists, but the stage stays empty and the DJ plays his songs. Now, more popular artists start singing and the audience warms up but still stays seated. At least they respond now with waving, clapping and cheering. A rasta guy with sun glasses is on stage and then performs with another guy. The sound is not really good, their voices sound like shouting rather than singing, but the audience likes it. They come down from the stage and go directly to the people seated there, singing to them. They look like puppets as they are constantly jumping. How can they still sing that way? The next artist is a real star, I think his name is Kitoko, and I even recognise a song. After him, it is time for reggae. The songs are cool but my problem is that the singer looks like a school boy with his short hair, not moving much, standing in front of the microphone almost as stiff as a board. He should swap places with the camera man, I can’t stop thinking.
There is always somebody on stage who is not supposed to be there. Camera men, technicians, other guys whose functions I can’t tell. They are not even dressed in a discrete way.
Finally, a band in red jackets enters the stage. Two girls in black hotpants and white shirts with massive black frizzy manes start dancing. Now the moment has come for the one star to arrive who everybody is waiting for. Jose Chameleone from Uganda. He asks the audience to get up and come close to the stage and stays at the back of the stage until we do so. It doesn’t take too long. The audience is on their feet now. Arms with cameras and mobile phones are stretched into the air to get the closest shots of Chameleone. He poses for the pictures, showing off his matte black shirt and the sparkling silver necklace. He comes close to the audience, lets those in front touch him. It is impressive even though the sound of his songs is not very good. The trumpet and the saxophone sound jarring and distorted, his own voice sounds rough. In this light, his face has almost brutal features, he looks much older than in pictures, much older than in the poster announcing this valu valu live concert, that we pass every day on our way to work. I am quite fascinated and sometimes even forget to move with the music. Most of the time I don’t understand what he is singing or saying, but I understand how he says that he is not Ugandan but East African. He praises Rwanda despite the ‘mess of 1994’. At one point, Chameleone makes some people, mostly children, come on stage. A small boy sings one of his songs and everybody is cheering. I don’t feel my hunger anymore at all and lost track of time.
It is 12 o’clock when we leave the hotel. Only in the car, I realise how tired I am. I go to bed, Chameleone’s voice still in my head.
