Los Angeles based recording artist Joseph Rutakangwa reflects on six years of musical exploration, the influences that shaped him, and the more intentional songwriting approach guiding his forthcoming album.
Joseph Rutakangwa has never experienced music in neat categories. For the Los Angeles based recording artist and songwriter, a soulful rock record, an Afropop rhythm, an indie folk song and a Latin melody can belong to the same personal history. What connects them is not genre. It is feeling.
Music was part of Rutakangwa’s life long before he began recording it himself. Different songs became attached to memories, people and moments, shaping the way he understood emotion. He developed an especially strong affection for music that could do a lot with very little. A piano, an acoustic guitar, a bass and a voice can sometimes carry more weight than a crowded arrangement.
Still, wanting to make music and actually releasing it were two different things. That changed in 2020. The pandemic made the uncertainty of life impossible to ignore, and Rutakangwa decided that a dream continually postponed could eventually become a dream never attempted. That summer, he released his first music publicly.
The years that followed became an education through experimentation. Rather than choosing one sound and staying there, Rutakangwa allowed himself to explore. Releases including “Avani,” “I Am Meant for You” and “Please God” moved through different emotional and musical spaces while helping him understand what he wanted to keep and what he was ready to leave behind.
Six years later, the question is no longer whether he can make music. It is what deserves to remain when everything unnecessary is stripped away.
That question is shaping the album he is developing now. The project centers on love, intimacy, vulnerability and the emotional contradictions that appear when another person begins to matter deeply. Rutakangwa is interested in songs that communicate those feelings directly rather than hiding them behind complexity.
The new work is also being approached as an album in the traditional sense. Each song has a role in a larger emotional progression. The aim is for the listener to move through the project and feel that something has changed between the beginning and the end.
That focus has made simplicity increasingly important to Rutakangwa’s songwriting. His wide range of influences remains part of his musical vocabulary, but he is less interested in demonstrating range for its own sake. The goal is to find the sound that best serves the emotion of each song.
It is a subtle but meaningful shift. Earlier releases documented an artist discovering what he could do. The forthcoming project is being built by an artist becoming more selective about what he wants to say.
Rutakangwa has not yet announced the album title, tracklist or release date. That leaves the details of the next chapter intentionally incomplete. What is clearer is the philosophy behind it. Genre can move. Production can change. The center has to remain human.
For someone whose relationship with music began by connecting songs to memories, that may be the clearest definition of his sound yet. Not a category, but a feeling strong enough to become somebody else’s memory.
Listen and learn more
Website: https://www.rutakangwa.com/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4YKcvEwFMxNbom5NFjiLY9