Caleb Rimtobaye also known as AfrotroniX, is an award-winning musician from Chad.
His mission is to change the image of Africa with both his music and his appearance. He calls this Afro-futurism.
On stage, he wears a jumpsuit with a slatted helmet that looks like something from a science fiction movie.
He blends traditional sounds and rhythms with digital effects to produce unique audio and visual experience.
“This project is really about showing another side of the continent. I’ve been here in North America, and the way people see Africa, and the way they define it is not really close to reality. I just decided to show something different; a stronger continent.”
To illustrate his point AfrotroniX talks about a radio interview he once did in New York.
The host of the programme asked him: “How do you say welcome in Africa? “He was a journalist and he was talking about Africa as a country! I told him: ‘If you can tell me how to say welcome in European then I’ll tell you.’ And then he’s like: ‘So you guys live with the Lions?’
So all this made me want to change the narrative about Africanity.”
You only have to watch the video of one of his most recent tracks entitled Solal to see his clever juxtaposition of the old and the futuristic.
Caleb lives between Chad and Montreal in Canada and has two albums under his belt and a third one on the way.
He has been making music from an early age and led a band called H’sao which he formed with his brothers at the age of just 13.
In 2001 they won a music competition in Canada and decided to stay there.
He surrounds himself with specialists in digital arts such as Jean-Sébastien Baillat, Guillaume Cardell or Marc-André Cossette.
Crowned “Best African DJ” at the All Africa Music Awards (Afrima), in November 2018 in Ghana, for his show called NomadiX, Caleb Rimtobaye undertakes a series of tours, notably on the electro scenes of New York, Chicago, Ottawa, Mexico, Sao Paulo, N’Djamena, Rabat, Dodoma (Tanzania) or Praia (Green cap).
On February 28, 2019, he was awarded the Canadian Gala Dynastie prize for best artist, intended to reward “black excellence in Quebec”.
Source: BBC
