JP Bim-Nyi is a Burundian artist based in the United Kingdom. Burundi is a small country in East Africa with a bloody history and much less attention on the world stage. Bim-Nyi is no stranger to violence, survived the infamous Kibimba school massacre when he was 16 and just a few months later was about to lose his life for the second time in a gang shooting that left him seriously injured. With the help of a grant from the “The Hugh Pilkington Charitable Trust” based in Oxford, he moved to the United Kingdom to study and has lived there ever since. But he has not forgotten his homeland, and as time passes, he tries to make sense of the society in which he grew up and music helps him to follow this path.
Self-taught musician, he has been part of a multitude of bands and projects since 2002. Mantilla Band in 2003; “Slow Me”, his first solo E.P., in 2008; the hit “Agahengwe” sung in his native language; the band Lostchild with whom he reached the semifinals of the Emergenza Festival in 2010; solo concert for the 60th anniversary of Acnur in 2010; the rock-soul band Saints Patience; or the tribute to Otis Redding with Jezebel Sextet.
All this brings us to The Black Belts, band of 6 renowned musicians of the Madrid scene (Rodrigo Díaz on drums, Pablo Cano on bass, Fernando Vasco on guitar, Álex Lárraga on keys, and Ricardo Martínez and Rafael Díaz on trumpet and saxophone respectively) formed in the studios of TucXone Records, where they have shaped their debut “Free Me”, a work overflowing with ‘swamp soul’. Guitars, keyboards, a section of brass, and the enveloping voice of Bimeni, all prepared to make you dance to the beat of rhythm’n’blues.
