Blood and Milk

In 2019, Janvier Murenzi wrote “Mata y’ amaraso,” a composition to commemorate the 1994 genocide against Tutsis in Rwanda. 

Murenzi lives in Huye, in the south of the country. The 62-year-old is a lecturer at the University of Rwanda, where he teaches courses in social thought, philosophy, and political thought. He is also a music instructor at the Rwanda School of Creative Arts and Music. “Mata y’ amaraso” combines his classical music education with lyrics in Kinyarwanda. 

It has now been 30 years since the genocide that killed as many as 1 million Rwandans. The country has made significant strides in the past three decades, but continues to grapple with its history—and its methods for moving forward. 

In early March, VAN spoke with Murenzi about his composition and what meaning it holds now, 30 years after the genocide.

VAN: Why did you write this song? 

Janvier Murenzi: I was thinking: I need to contribute to the reconstruction of the country. I’m not building houses or driving cars. I’m a musician, so my contribution is about music. A song can contribute to the life of a society. I call it a political role, a political call for artists to not only dance and perform, but also to think of big topics like the life of a nation, including the negative story that happened.

Music is actually used to commemorate the 1994 genocide against Tutsis, so I was not the first to do it. There are others, but they went much more in the realistic approach—singing about events as they occurred. So I thought it was time to bring in some poetry and a sense of imagery. Another point is that I thought that the available songs in commemoration of the genocide were much more popular. And I needed to contribute with my classical music background. 

Can you talk about the meaning of this piece?  

It’s called “Mata y’ amaraso.” “Amata” is milk. “Amaraso” is blood. The month of April was customarily, in ancient Rwanda, a month of abundance, a month of milk. And unfortunately in 1994, it turned out to be not a month of life, but a month of death; of calamity, disaster in the whole country. 

The basic idea is these contrasts between the history of the month of April and the then-disastrous story of genocide. So I played on that contrast. Contrast is a basic idea, a generic idea, but I tried to develop it, saying: “If you can’t have any answer to why people passed away in an unjust way, at least what we can call for is to help the survivors.” 

It’s a pragmatic call to do what we can for them. Because some of our initiatives and intentions are not sufficient to do that. So my song is about individual and community, hand in hand, and past and present moving on to look at the future. 

Could you roughly translate the chorus? 

The chorus, roughly, is “April of blood”—or let’s say, “bloody April.”

“You can’t give us back our loved people, but do something for the survivors. Try to change the hearts of the perpetrators. Let’s build a world free from disasters or from calamities, from injustice. And let’s build a world free from genocide.” That’s it. That’s the chorus. 

If I can jump to the verses, roughly what they say: The first one is like the history of the genocide, tracing the background and describing what happened. And the second verse is optimistic, proactive, looking at the future. That we need to put our hands together to rebuild.

You were talking about how it’s more classical-sounding than other songs commemorating the genocide. It reminded me, when I first heard it, almost of a hymn. Could you talk about how it sounds? 

The rhythm is slow, like a funeral march. And I chose some instruments that were more likely to help the emotion. I opted for cello because of its emotional sound. You know, the cello is the most human instrument in terms of sound and voice. And I think it is like the first time in Rwanda you have music composed for a cello. 

But what is special is the use of the gong. It’s an East Asian instrument, a percussion instrument, and it’s very deep. When you have it with a slow pace, a slow tempo; it’s meditative, it makes you think more and more. And the sound is not bright, but limited, or limiting. 

And the melody has sort of a long shape, carving, ascending and descending, like a hymn, as you said. But in the chorus, the melodic phrases were short in contrast with the verse. I bring in some colors, with some [ornamentation] in the voice. Without exaggerating, because it’s not about exhibiting music—it’s about commemoration. 

And there is a sort of dialogue between classical music and Gregorian [chant], because in what they call the bridge, I use a Gregorian theme, which is very well known as a requiem or mass for the dead. But I change the rhythm and the length of the phrases on purpose to adapt to the audience. To avoid the kind of freefall, free-flowing, Gregorian chant. 

The outro is also a sort of revolt and call for the genocide to not repeat again. So there is much emotion in the ending. 

This year marks 30 years since the genocide. What kind of significance does this song hold at a marker like that? 

What I love about classical music [pieces] is that they are timeless, they’re perennial. I don’t know if I’m [being] pretentious to say that. 

But you gain something and you lose something. The song or the music may sound a bit sophisticated or intellectual for some people. When I published it, some of the survivors said, “OK, thank you, but we would like to use a realist approach. We want to sing the names of people who died.” In my song there is nothing like that. I took images. But you gain this kind of mattering for different times, touching the long-run perspective. 

How do you think your country is doing now? 

It’s a process. It’s a journey, with highs and lows. Globally, we are in the positive. But that doesn’t [describe] the details. Some people are still in poverty; some are not still reconciled with themselves, with this history. Some are not reconciled with the history of the others. 

It’s not particular to Rwanda. I think the U.S. has got something of that also. And not in the past, but every day, every time. Not to mention the countries which suffered from genocide, like Israel or Armenia or others. 

Well, the chorus of the song almost feels like a prayer for something.

It’s like an invitation. We have two tasks. We have the task of examining what happened, but we also have the task of thinking the future. ¶