Wizards releases Koko remake
Nnasaretha Kgamanyane | Sunday February 27, 2022 06:00
When they entered the music industry, they were a hip-hop group, which seemed poised to popularise the American influenced genre in Botswana. However, over time they slowly incorporated popular African styles such as Rhumba into their music. The single was produced by DJ Call Me, a very well known producer, who has produced numerous hits for Makhadzi.
It was dropped on February 18, 2022. The group has not released an album nor collaborated with international artistes for some time. In an interview with Mavivo, one of Wizards members, said the single is meant to mark their come back with full force and that Wizards were back in the game. “The song has started circulating through local and South Africa radio stations and it is catching up with the ears of listeners. The song is available for downloads through our social media pages @Wizards and also in YouTube.
The single has opened doors internationally as now we have more line-up of projects to be done especially from the Limpopo province as they have really enjoyed and liked the flavour of our genre,” he said. This duo has been in the music industry for 23 straight years (since 1998). Their genre of music is called “House Kwasa “ a genre that in their opinion was pioneered by Skizo in the early 2000s. Wizards adopted the style and popularised it.
They released about 12 albums that include Sangoma, Khoisan, Aristocracy, Koko, Phokoje, DR Mokento among others. Wizards write their own songs. Mavivo said the public accepted Wizards as a musical group and as a goodwill ambassador. He explained that they won three BOMU awards and Mokento was song of the year in its time.
Their music was marketed through radio stations and social media (Facebook in particular). Furthermore, he explained that in order to stay relevant, the group adopted and embraced the concept of re-invention, which was necessary to move with time and fuse their original sound with the current sound. Speaking of the challenges they faced as Botswana artistes, was the dominance by SA artistes in their space, which had been the case for as long as he can remember. He, however, added that they will keep trying to find space within the field to showcase what they had. “The local market seems to have an inclination towards SA artistes more, but Batswana have made it clear that they will support good music whether local or not.
They will not just support you because you are local, but because you have good quality music. It is a challenge that we have accepted as Wizards.” “Our advice to upcoming artists is that, in order to make it in this game, you have to work on your attitude towards how you relate with people, especially those that form part of your early foundation of your career, you must understand that talent alone is not enough to make it in this game,” he said.