30TTSS

30 Minutes of Tempting Tales and Sweet Seduction with Mvaknow

This wasn’t just a show. This was me turning my personal chaos into a stage-ready cocktail shaken, not stirred, with a heavy splash of lust, heartbreak, and hustle.

At the time, life was doing me dirty. I’d just lost the bar I was running with my then-situationship. The tension in that thing? Straight out of a Wattpad fanfiction. To add more spice, I had just found out she was pregnant. So there I was: broke, basically homeless, and constantly horny; like my body thought “arousal” was a coping mechanism for poverty. Distraction was winning, bills were losing, and I had to find a way to tame the beast. Solution? Write a monologue.

Here’s the twist though: the pregnancy didn’t go through. She ended up aborting. That shook me. It made the whole experience even heavier, but also fueled me to double down on the art; to channel all that confusion, pain, and leftover tension into something that lived outside of me. That’s how the show was born: part confession, part therapy, part striptease of the soul.

In my head it was always a two-character piece. I even had the actress locked in, until she got sick two days before showtime. Plot twist. Then came Fusci Alba, my last-minute casting miracle. Two hours of rehearsal and she had it down so well you’d think she had been living inside my brain rent-free. Together, we didn’t just perform, we turned the gallery into a confessional booth with better lighting.

Speaking of galleries, Indiba Arts Gallery in Kigali hosted the whole madness. Shoutout to them, because the space was perfect. Also everything was just alligned perfectly, 20 minutes before the show I had no clue how I was going to afford the wine I had to use on stage.... but the way that played out? complete magic.

I could only afford it after cashing two early bird tickets at the venue; ABATONI and her friend saved that moment. Imagine me leaving the venue, hopping on a boda like James Bond but broke, grabbing bottles, and rushing back in time to pour them like it was all part of the plan.

The night wasn’t short on drama either. My ex from six years ago, the one I still lowkey missed, pulled up with her brother. What did I do? Handed them both roses like some Shakespearean jester trying to be smooth. It worked, the moment was nothing short of cinematic.

And then DJ Dwayne wrapped it up with an R&B mix so sweet it felt like the afterparty had been sponsored by Cupid himself. The whole room turned into a slow-burn romance film, minus the credits.

Props where props are due: big love to Tonia for the pictures, to Abatoni and her friend for being early birds (without them, I wouldn’t have had wine on that stage), and to everyone who came through ready to sink into this madness with me.

In the end, 30 Minutes of Tempting Tales and Sweet Seduction wasn’t about perfection. It was about survival dressed up in poetry, lust bottled into art, and a little bit of broke-boy magic that somehow made the night unforgettable.

Because sometimes, when life burns down your plans: bars lost, pregnancies cut short, love lives crumbling; you just grab a mic, pour some wine, and turn the ashes into seduction.