Sano Boi Starts Fingers Crossed in 1996 with a Song for Every 90's Kid
A Rwandan Rapper Looks Back on His Childhood and Calls in B-Threy and Bushali
On 90’s Kid, Sano Boi goes back to a childhood that began in 1996. The song is for every child of that decade who grew up wanting to do something for their community. It opens Fingers Crossed, the four-song hip-hop EP that Sano Boi, a rapper from Kigali, Rwanda, released on 27 July 2025. B-Threy and Bushali join him as guests.
Sano Boi’s 90’s Kid, from the Fingers Crossed EP, sits in the playlist below, among hip-hop, rap, drill and grime records, and every article about the rapper is listed on Sano Boi’s artist profile. The EP came to this desk through PopHits.Co Music Charts. It verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news desks. Press play on 90’s Kid, then read on.
That writing is the subject here. So this piece looks at the hook of the opener, what its lyric sets out to say, and how four short songs fit together.
Sano Boi Turns a Birth Year Into the Hook of 90’s Kid on Fingers Crossed
First, the hook is the title. 90’s Kid names a generation, and Sano Boi uses his own birth year as the way in. The song starts as a look back at one childhood. Then it widens.
So the lyric moves from one life to a whole generation. Its message is unity, with no room for anyone to be shut out. It also speaks to the 90’s kids around the world who dreamed of changing things where they live.
That is how Sano Boi writes in general. He grew up in Kacyiru, known locally as Kak City, and he raps in English and Kinyarwanda to carry local stories to listeners at home and abroad. Culture tours have also taken his music to Kampala and Zanzibar and to cities in Germany, France, Belgium and Switzerland. In Munich, he has worked with artists living with disabilities through the NGO GWW.
Sano Boi, credited as Hitiyise Sano Hitiyise, wrote the words and music of 90’s Kid. Illusionist made the beat, and Minutes Pro mixed it. Then the song’s audio went up on Sano Boi’s own YouTube channel on 4 October 2025 and had passed 4,000 views by mid-November 2026. His Instagram bio, followed by 12,700 people, still announces the EP and calls him a 90’s kid.
Kendrick Lamar’s Good Kid, M.A.A.D City Showed How Far a Childhood Story Can Carry
Kendrick Lamar set the bar for this kind of writing. His second album, good kid, m.A.A.d city, came out in 2012 billed as a short film. It tells a coming-of-age story about his teenage years in Compton, and it debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200. 90’s Kid takes the same idea, one childhood standing for many, and fits it into two minutes and 49 seconds.
Every Song on Sano Boi’s Fingers Crossed Ends Inside Three Minutes
The structure is tight: Fingers Crossed by Sano Boi runs 10 minutes and 47 seconds across four songs. 90’s Kid lasts 2:49, Drip on Monday 2:39, Run it 2:40 and Kama Mbaya Mbaya 2:38. Every one ends before the three-minute mark, so the EP gets in, makes its point and moves on.
Two of the four songs also bring in guests. B-Threy joins Sano Boi on Drip on Monday, and Bushali closes the EP on Kama Mbaya Mbaya. Bushali, in fact, is a familiar partner. He was already on Daily, from Thankful, the 15-track album Sano Boi made with A4 in 2019. The titles mix languages too: Drip on Monday and Run it are in English, and Kama Mbaya Mbaya, the Bushali song, is the only title on the EP that is not.
The EP came out on Gakondo Rap Nation, which holds the recording rights. Rwanda’s New Times covered Sano Boi and A4 when Thankful arrived in January 2019, so the rapper has been at this for years. That album already ranged widely, from Continental Free Trade Area with ML to Freedom with Sammy Blak Bomayé and Rwanda We Made It.
Sarkodie Proved a Rapper Can Write in Two Languages and Still Reach the World
Sarkodie, the Ghanaian rapper from Tema, frequently raps in Twi. He also won Best International Flow Artist at the 2019 BET Hip Hop Awards. Sano Boi aims for the same kind of reach with English and Kinyarwanda, so home comes first and then the rest of the world.
From the RapStar.News curator team: “We added 90’s Kid to our hip-hop and rap playlist, where a look back at a 1996 childhood stands out among the drill and grime.”
Start with 90’s Kid, then let the other three songs show where that childhood led.
Follow Sano Boi on Spotify, YouTube and Instagram.
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