1Key

1Key

Artist

1key (government name Eric Ngangare) is an independent recording artist, emcee, performer, writer, filmmaker, poet, spoken word artist, actor, cultural shaker, and mover from Rwanda exploring various formats of storytelling. Subjects that reoccur in his work touch on identities—individual and collective—power systems, and society dynamics. He is a relentless DIY craftsman who doesn't wait for opportunities, he creates them.

Born from a Congolese father and a Rwandan mother whose family had sought exile in Zaïre (Democratic Republic of Congo now), 1key spent his childhood shifting from one neighborhood to another, village to village, city to city, a number of countries across Africa to finally settle in Rwanda in 1997. Well, for a bit because he never stopped moving.