Skip to main content

My Journey with A Rising Star

His name is Jean-Pierre Nimbona and he is known by the name of Kidum. By far he is the greatest Burundian superstar singer of all times (that's my opinion). He has been to a place no other Burundian artist has ever been. He was elected the best male artist of the year in East Africa in 2011 and he recently finished his first Canadian Tour which included performances in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal (twice), Calgary and Edmonton.

He happens to be my wife's family close friend (I can now get inside information about his career lol). He is about to fly to Switzerland for one concert, then to Sweden for another one; after that he will return to Zürich for another concert. He will end his European Tour with a concert in Belgium before heading back to Kenya (where he lives) for only five days. After, he will head to Rwanda for a concert, plus play five concerts in Burundi before flying to South Africa. After the African Tour, he will go to the US to perform 30 concerts! Did you hear that? 30 concerts in the US. I am tired from just writing the number of concerts he will be performing at over the next few months. It's crazy.

I have seen him perform in Burundi a couple of times; he was once my guest at the radio station when I was still in Burundi, but at that time we were not really close friends. Now that my wife has introduced me to him, I have had the opportunity to be with him one on one a couple of times while he was here in Toronto. What a blast! The guy can produce hit after hit. At his concerts, all he has to do is start a song, then the public takes it from there and finishes it. He is such a talented artist.

I was with him yesterday at Ngoma Lounge here in Toronto where he came to say good bye to his fans and offer free drinks (I was there just for that one lol). He got to perform with my boys Kijanya, Nicolas and Tamsir Seck. It was a joy man. We had so much fun.

I had another chance to speak with Kidum once more. He told me his story. He fled from Burundi during war to live in Kenya where he started his career as a musician. The first years were so hard that he wanted to give up numerous times. He started regretting why he had left his home country, but he couldn't return as the war was still on. He started playing in bars and getting a little bit of money here and there.

Then came the song “Yaramenje”. That song took the whole region like a storm, and the rest is history. Looking back at his tough times, he doesn't regret anything at all. Now he can really enjoy his success as he knows that it came by working hard and never giving up. Do you know what is his goal now? In his own words: “I want to leave a legacy. I want to go to places where no other artist has ever been, so as to be an inspiration to other African Artists”. I guess he is on the right track.

I am glad I was there to hear that. Most of the time, we see people at the top of their careers and we have no idea about what they went through to get there. I believe talent alone is not enough. It is about persistence, believing without seeing, passion, determination and above all, doing what we love to do. The rest is in God's hands.

Moral of the story? Do you want to spend time with a superstar? Just marry someone who knows people at high places, maybe he/she will happen to know me.


Always a pleasure


Patrick

The Journeyman

patrick@goalachieverscanada.com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Journey to Orillia

We drove a little bit late at night. I had been to this place called Orillia before, but it was about ten years ago. I didn’t remember much about it, other than it was beautiful. Here we were on the road, and there was not much we could see, except a signal on the highway that said “beware of cattle”. We thought it was funny.   By the time we arrived at the hotel, it was almost midnight. I went straight to bed. We had to wake up early in the morning as breakfast was scheduled to be served a six O’clock. There was no way I was going to miss out.‎ You may be wondering what was happening in Orillia. I am glad you asked. A number of months ago, Paul, my business partner, got this brilliant idea, and once he shared it with me I was totally on board. He realized that for us to do what we wanted to do, we must work with partners. These may be service providers, or simply other business owners with goals similar to ours. Paul decided to go out and attend different netwo...
1 comment
Read more

My Journey to two stories

I participated in a communication's course last week-end. Talk about being at the right place at the right time. It was unbelievable! Do you know what was the emphasis in the course? Guess! It was communication in relationships! No comment! Lol During the course, I reflected on two stories that I would like to share with you (free of charge of course). Here they are: There was an old guy who was sleeping in his couch. His grandkids came over while he was sleeping and placed a piece of cheese under his nose. Soon after, the guy woke up and exclaimed: “this room stinks!” He went into the kitchen and said again: “This kitchen stinks as well, maybe I should go outside”. He went outside, but still the same smell was around. Finally, in disgust he shouted: “The whole world stinks”. Little did he realize that the scent came from the cheese that was under his nose. Did you like that story? If not, I won’t share the next one. ..........Okay, okay, seeing that you insist, I wi...
2 comments
Read more

My journey to Choq

Here I am again with another unknown word. What in the world is the meaning of Choq? This is the name of the first radio station I worked at in Canada (so far it's the first and only station, but I believe there are many more to come). How did I come to know about this station? It's a long story. Here I am, new to Canada, with three years of experience in radio broadcasting under my belt, trying to nail my first job without even getting my work permit yet (Superman, watch out). The only connection I had in Toronto was the Internet (what a good one!), and the only place I knew was the public library (another good one). Networking has been one of my strengths (the Internet and the public library were the first good business contacts I made. I was the man!!!). But, after a few calls, I knew that my two contacts were not enough. I had to meet real people. However, I kept coming back to the library (I am a faithful friend) because the Internet helped me to keep in touch with my fami...
Post a Comment
Read more