33 ze trip

Some stories begin with fireworks. Mine begins with a number that wouldn’t stop chasing me… and an artist who thought he had everything figured out until life said, “Sit down, we need to talk.”

Before I became Mvaknow, I was known as Mxnzi Le Poète; the Renaissance kid, literally. I dropped my debut studio album Renaissance Tale I, a title loud enough to announce to the universe: “Hey, I’m starting something big.”

And the universe… answered. Somehow, that album got recognized by the Recording Academy as part of the inaugural submissions of the best spoken word album category. That was wild. I was still making music like a guy who records feelings more than songs. But somehow, the Academy said, “We see you.”

That moment felt like a green light from God’s admin team.

Naturally, I thought the next album had to be immediate, massive, poetic, philosophical, award-winning, soul-shaking, universe-bending; you get the point. I convinced myself I was ready for Renaissance Tale II.

But what I made? Yeah… it wasn’t giving tale, wasn’t giving renaissance; it was giving “Please, save this in the drafts and never return.”

My creativity collapsed like bad WiFi.

And then came the silence. The heavy kind.The kind where even music feels too loud. I fell into a depression so deep it felt like sinking downward and inward at the same time. Everything blurred. Every day felt like the same day. And yet, somewhere in that fog, something inside me whispered, “Write.”

That whisper became MELANCHOLIA, my debut anthology. A book born from emotional debris.Pages soaked in honesty, written by someone who didn’t want to pretend anymore.

It was painful, but it cracked something open.

See, here’s the thing nobody tells you about breaking down: Sometimes it’s just your old self retiring.

After Melancholia, something else happened; something I can only describe as a spiritual awakening, but not the influencer kind with incense and yoga poses. More like the universe handed me a metaphysical slap and said, “Bro, wake up.”

I started seeing patterns. Numbers.Signs.Especially 33; that number followed me like a stubborn spirit guide: clocks, receipts, random pages, dreams… even in moments I didn’t expect it. And eventually I realized:

I wasn’t just seeing 33.33 was seeing me.

That’s when the rebrand happened. Not for aesthetics; for alignment. Mxnzi Le Poète felt like the boy telling stories about rebirth. Mvaknow is the man living them. And that’s where the album came in: not forced, not pressured, but given.

33 isn’t an album I decided to make. It’s an album that decided I was ready.

Inside it lives everything I went through: the crash, the awakening, the letting go, the returning to myself, the unraveling, the understanding, the frequency shifts, the cosmic jokes, the divine nudges.

Musically, it’s the moment I fell back in love with writing in Kinyarwanda, but differently. Deeper. More philosophical. More metaphysical. More in tune with the unseen.Still grounded in East Africa, still rhythmic, still melodic… just wiser. Like my pen got baptized in clarity.

The album travels through growth, surrender, purpose, spiritual alignment, and the strange, hilarious ways the universe communicates. It’s not preachy. Not performative. Just honest; painfully, beautifully honest.

If Renaissance Tale I was my first life, then 33 is the moment I actually woke up in it.

It’s enlightenment with drums. Healing with harmonies. A cosmic journey served with that “yeah, I went through it” sauce.

And the best part? For once, I’m not creating from pressure; I’m creating from truth.

So on March 3rd, 33 arrives. Not as a sequel. Not as a comeback. But as a realization.

If you’ve ever been broken open to meet a deeper version of yourself, this album will resonate. And if you haven’t, don’t worry; the music still hits, the story still flows, and who knows… maybe your own “33 moment” is waiting in the bassline.

Welcome to 33; my rebirth after the renaissance!