My own reggea

I sat in the hall at Ishyo Arts Centre and waited patiently for the man I had come to see, to see perform. When I saw the newsletter a day earlier, my love for reggae music was stirred and I knew I must watch Darius Rou Rou perform. Well I had ulterior motives because I knew that I would get to enjoy the show and get paid. I smiled knowingly watching the dreadlocked men moving up and down the stage setting up their sound equipment in preparation. This very day, reggae lovers across the world were also paying tribute to Bob Marley, the reggae icon.
The month of April marks the commemoration of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Although the whole country goes into a period known as the mourning week, the commemoration usually continues for 100 days which symbolizes the number of days massacres were perpetrated.
These 100 days as I came to find out, are significant for Darius Rou Rou aka Jah Bon D.
The energy and passion he unleashed on stage shocked revelers. His long dreadlocks, several years old and his over 50 years of age, one would expect a more laid back kind of a performance. Born in 1960 Darius Rurangirwa alias Jah Bon D had a first experience of the widespread hostility against the Tutsis in 1973 and later on in 1994. Because of that he is determined to spread a message of love and harmony as the people of Rwanda strive to forgive, reconcile and learn from the past.
He tells me, he was born in Muhazi, Muhazi commune at the time. “But things have changed now” he reflects. “My name that my father and my mother gave me is Darius Rurangirwa because I was born a Christian.” He adds.
I am fascinated about this wiry old man with the energy of a horse.

Q: When did you start singing?
Jah Bon D: I sing all the time, when I was a child, I was singing in the church, at school. But I started singing after 1994. In 1995, that’s when I started singing with musicians, with Ingeri band, Jean Paul Samputu was there to help me and to teach me how things go. Samputu was there, I remember.

Jean Paul Samputu is one among the most admired Rwandan artist and role model to many for the past 35 years. Darius discovered the guitar at the age of 13 in the 1970’s but at the time, reggae was not his genre of music. He however admits that he had a love for the late reggae icon Bob Marley and over time, he inspired him to venture into reggae music.

“No it was not reggae really. It was things I used to hear around like zouk and melancholic music, but I had reggae somewhere in my mind because in early 1980 when Bob Marley was there, we could listen to Bob Marley music all the time. They even used to call me Bob.” He noted.
Q: So can you say that Bob Marley is the one who inspired you into music?
A: Of course, Bob Marley is not only the king of reggae but he is also the founder. He is spiritual, like a living spirit.

After performing several songs from his new album, the music stopped, there was a hush in the crowd and a look of reflection and remembrance covered his face as he introduced his song 100 days.
His introduction is somber: “Let those who can hear tell everyone around the world, those who participated, those who had a role whoever they are. Genocide never again, My 100 days.”
And the song 100 days fills the air. Everyone is jumping up and down to the music.

After this performance, I asked him to tell me about his song 100 days, I was curious to know why he was very passionate about it.


100 days, they call it 100 days but I call it a million days. It’s a million days but we officially know 100 days because the international community accepted that is when things were done. But in the beginning, for us genocide started early in 1959 and the international community was there sometimes pushing and pushing so that things are finalized. So when I’m singing I say; I think you know, I know you know, and I’m talking to genocide like a person and I say: Remember this, in 1990 you knocked at my door and then I say now the time has come and your dirty game is over because we need no more genocide.

Darius Rurangirwa survived the genocide by a whisker. Six months before the genocide, he was abducted and jailed and later terrorized in different locations around Kigali. On the first seven days of the genocide, he witnessed the massacre of his siblings before he escaped with three bullets in his body.

He says: I know what genocide is. People wrote books, everybody has a way to transmit what he knows, so this is 100 days.

Jah Bone D says he is not a judge and only God can judge what happened in Rwanda. He notes somberly that as survivors are urged to forgive, those who were responsible for the genocide, directly or indirectly must strongly denounce that it never happens again.