“We formed the group last year and by the beginning of January, we went into the studio to record,” said Klaaster. The album is called “Ko Ko Re Bulele” and comprises six very lengthy tracks, which they wrote and produced on their own.
“Kwasa Kwasa is very vibey music and for the song to have an impact on the audience, it has to be quite long,” said Klaaster.
Their songs resemble those of kwasa kwasa greats from the Democratic Republic of Congo. He confesses that he has always loved kwasa kwasa music from DRC and that influenced his decision to sing Kwasa Kwasa instead of any other music genre popular among Batswana. One of the songs on the album is “Kgarejwana” which is about a boy who loves a girl and ends up sending his parents to ask for her hand in marriage.
The album’s title track, Ko Ko (Knock Knock), is the group’s way of knocking on every household to ask Batswana for acceptance. “It is our first album and we are simply asking them to welcome us with both hands in this ever-growing industry,” he said. The launch of the album will be in different places in Francistown and Klaaster says they have decided to release tapes first before they release CDs as they want to make profit out of the album.
“We have realised that people like to pirate other people’s music and before they can copy it, we would like to release it onto a tape first to prevent this,” Klaaster said. He says that he is worried about piracy and wishes there was an organisation in Botswana that could help musicians so that the albums they have worked so hard for are not pirated. Klaaster says that though it is their first album, they are here to stay and will give their audiences everywhere a thrill they have never experienced before.
“We love our Kwasa Kwasa and we guarantee people great shows everywhere we will go. I call out to Francistown-based groups to support each other and not go around bad mouthing one another,” Klaaster said. He said that since the group is new, they do not have equipment but welcome anybody who has equipment to lend it to them.
