Entre 2 album review: Virtually Yours

Track 4: Virtually Yours ft. Ricky Password & Mhinganzima 

While A L’Africaine (Iwacu) expresses 1Key’s romantic nostalgia for a time before apps and gadgets, the album’s following track throws us forwards into a celebration of online space and its capacity for enabling love and musical collaboration. Virtually Yours narrates an online love story, with the feel-good mood being inspired by Ray Charles’s influential song What’d I Say (1959). Recorded at audio-producer Barick’s home-studio in Kigali, Virtually Yours is alive and upbeat. The free-feeling quality is achieved by the fast tempo, the strong backbeat of the drum kit, and the attack of the electric piano rhythms. We hear multiple voices singing in Kinyarwanda, French and English, reflecting the new Kigali today, where entwined linguistic and cultural influences feed into an increasingly diverse and interesting creative arts scene.

The Kigali that I am referring to is not constrained by physical boundaries, with digital media platforms connecting Rwandans and non-Rwandans from all over the world. Indeed, Virtually Yours is the first of four collabos on the album and features Mhinganzima, a female singer and member of the Rwandan diaspora. When living in Sweden, Mhinganzima became 1Key’s friend on Twitter and the two of them developed a deep connection. 1Key dedicates Virtually Yours to Mhinganzima and praises her when he says: “I love to read her prose for hours/Her voice sounds like a catchy tune.” (Translated from French to English) In the second verse, we are treated to Mhinganzima’s velvety voice and beautifully thoughtful words. She misses Rwanda, but feels a closeness to 1Key through “[Their] words which devour miles.” (Translated from French to English)

Virtually Yours also features Rwandan world music singer Ricky Password and Natacha, a dear friend of 1Key and a lively and important voice in Rwanda’s fast-growing spoken word scene. The hook, sung in English by Ricky Password, remains loyal to 1Key’s creative style. He plays with words, making reference to various social media platforms when he sings:

“You tweet like a little sweet birdie

Your face, book it for my kisses baby

You’re my sound cloud, your voice takes me higher

I lose instant–grams when you go M.I.A

WhatsApp with you, girl, can’t you see?

I’m so in love with you…” (My bold)

Moreover, the track opens to that familiar start-up sound of Microsoft Windows XP (2001), followed by a robotic female voice saying: “Press 1Key. Enter Password” and the rat-a-tat-tat of typing.

As we progress through 1Key’s album, we discover links between the tracks. In Virtually Yours, Ricky Password says: “Come to me Bwiza, forever desirable”, and later 1Key says: “Come to me and lay on the chest of a strong man,” (translated from Kinyarwanda to English), which is also a reference to A L’Africaine (Iwacu). Amongst the many strands of this multi-layered album – which is reflective of 1Key’s thoughts and lived experiences – is the rootedness in Rwandan idioms. 1Key says: “It’s not just… /…the look of a cow”, referring to the Rwandan saying that when a woman is beautiful she has the look of a cow, especially when she has big eyes. (Translated from French to English) Finally, the last two lines of the song, which translate as “Let me praise you/And play the Inanga for you”, which also link us back to 1Key’s opening track Apprenti_Sage.

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Song lyrics and translations