Winner of a Juno Award in 2004, Popo was one of the few choosen for EMI’s Live 8 DVD for his highlight performance at the Canadian edition of Bob Geldof’s international Live 8 concerts.

You could say that the Mighty Popo is a Rwandan/Burundian refugee/survivor whose music is steeped in African tradition, but you’d hardly be getting at the whole story of one of Canada’s greatest rising stars. You’d hardly be able to account for his effortless musicality as a member of the 2004 Juno Award winning African Guitar Summit, the kudos received for his genre-busting solo work, his performance for Live 8 or his brilliant return to New Orleans for CBC Radio’s Maple Leaf Mojo Meets New Orleans Gumbo benefit concert broadcast live across Canada. 

Popo inherited a love of the traditional music of Rwanda and Burundi, but he has a lifelong connection with Rock, Blues, Jazz, R&B, Reggae and Folk traditions. His music reflects his immersion in a world culture which he has navigated with grace, sensitivity and an enormous sense of exploration and fun. To Popo all this music formed one continuum, and when he left Burundi for Canada his musical journey took him down paths his ears had already traveled at home. He has toured North America and Europe with Canadian and American bluesmen, played reggae and R&B from Halifax to Vancouver and down to New Orleans, and led the house band at the 1998 Pan-African Dance Festival in Kigali.

As Popo gained experience as a performer, the various musical elements he first began absorbing in hometown of Ngagara became integrated in a mature musical vocabulary, and a brilliant and versatile sideman developed into a leader whose creative vision has given a voice to his old neighbourhood. The accent comes from Central Africa, but the interwoven idioms in this eloquent musical patois speak of all of black Africa and the African diaspora.