Eloi El

While it was essentially inevitable that Eloi El would become a musician, the type of music he’s made his name on is something of a surprise. Born Eloi Muhoranimana, the pop/electronic producer was born and raised in the Rwandan capital of Kigali as part of a musical family lead by El’s father, a renowned guitar player who worked across genres including rumba and Afro-Jazz. Together with his siblings, El tinkered in the family’s small recording studio and by age 13 was performing live — playing guitar and singing in the Rwandan language of Ikinyarwanda. But El’s musical output and life path changed suddenly in 2018 via an unlikely influence: Kygo. Upon first hearing the superstar producer, El redirected his efforts from hip-hop and afrobeat productions to a style of dance music parallel