Positive vibes: Music brings joy to Omy Karorero, hope and ability to his homeland

Omy Karorero first heard Bob Marley when he was a scared teenager, wandering the Nyamirambo neighborhood of Kigali, Rwanda. An orphan – his two sisters and parents killed earlier in the 1994 genocide – everything he owned he carried on his back.

“I was really hungry, standing on the street and feeling like, you know, ‘I don’t know what to do,’ ” Karorero said.

The mellow groove of Marley’s “Three Little Birds” drifted from a nearby shop.

“I remember the music, ‘Don’t worry ’bout a thing,’ and just taking a deep breath and saying ‘Ah, yeah, everything will be all right, I will be OK.’ ”

Karorero, 30, now lives in Spokane and has formed Impanda Rwanda – Impanda means “calling” in Kinyarwanda, Rwanda’s official language – with the hope that music and art can empower Rwandan street kids the same way it did him. The organization is working on attaining it’s 501(c)(3) status and is holding a benefit concert, One Beat, One Rhythm, One World, One Voice, One Tribe, One Night with Impanda Tuesday at the Bing Crosby Theater. Karorero will perform with his band, 1 Tribe, and share stories with donors about growing up on Rwandan streets.

He plans to use the funds raised from the event to buy and equip backpacks through Totes for Hope to take to street kids living in his old neighborhood later this year.

“Omy K is like the king of Rwanda, when he walks places, people stop and talk to him, because he is known and respected for being truthful,” said his wife, Sam Werme Karorero. “He can make an impact with children because he has walked their path and knows how to help them make peace with their suffering.”

Amid a sea of western nonprofits, Karorero said he knows that homeless Rwandan children need the essentials, like backpacks and clothes, to help in the short term, and art therapy to heal them in the long term.

“Music and art, they can open minds, and they can give the hope that these kids need and then we can say to them: ‘OK, what do you want to do with your life?’ ”

Karorero was 9 when he lost his parents and two sisters in 1994 amid a genocide that killed an estimated 500,000 to 1 million Rwandans. He escaped capture and fled to the streets and then to refugee camps. Later, he spent most of his teen years roaming Nyamirambo as a “rude boy” with other troubled youth.

“You’re always moving, you try to keep a clean change of clothes in your backpack, so you don’t look like: ‘I’m on the streets,’ and give up,” Karorero said.

Bob Marley’s music became the anchor for Karorero to stay grounded and upbeat.

“Music became like my medicine. You always fight it to be positive, I had reggae music to chill out and relax when things were bad,” he said.

It was through music that he met Werme Karorero, a recent University of Montana graduate and Spokane native who had traveled to Rwanda to teach math. They met in 2012 when he was performing reggae music in a restaurant.

“We met, and I had never met anyone like him,” Werme Karorero said. “I knew immediately he was the one and we both needed to have our feet in both Africa and the U.S. This is our combined dream.”

The pair married in 2013 and returned to Spokane in 2014 for the birth of their son, Zion, earlier this year.

Music also introduced him to Drew Blinko, a local musician who met Karorero outside of a reggae show in Spokane last summer. Karorero was there promoting Impanda, Blinko, her solo act. Blinko invited Karorero to jam with her band, and ended up joining Impanda Rwanda as director of creative programming. Together they formed the band 1 Tribe.

“After our first show, Omy said to me: ‘I feel like I have a second family, now,’ ” Blinko said. “His testimony serves purpose in giving a human-to-human understanding of things that we might not be able to comprehend without context.”

Blinko said she hopes that in the wake of evil, Impanda Rwanda can help with healing.

“Maybe it’s cleared the way, like a forest fire might, so that new growth can start with positivity,” she said.