The night the dead tree sang again
Spira Tlhankane | Friday September 18, 2026 10:23
Local artists Vee Mampeezy and Eskimos took to the stage and their music travelled across the Main Mall like a ghost returning to an old home. Since the lifeless trunk of the tree was removed from the mall’s pedestrian-only walkway last year, there has never been a plaque or monument to show that the serene symbol of local music had fallen.
There is no sign pointing to the place where music lovers once gathered under the acacia tree to buy the latest cassette or CD. That was the time when records sold like fat cakes and a new release could send people hurrying into town with money clenched in their pockets. On the night of Vee Mampeezy and Eskimos’ performance there was nothing to tell the younger generation that, somewhere within the same street, a tree had once become synonymous with Botswana's music industry.
Yet, for those who remember, the memory did not need a memorial jog but the music was the monument. And as Eskimos and Vee Mampeezy performed, it almost felt as though the old tree had stirred beneath the earth. Perhaps what awoke the Setlhareng.com ghost were the rhythm and the voices from both the artists and the crowd which had gathered in the Main Mall for the First National Bank’s 35 year anniversary. The Main Mall felt like it had been handed back to the era of cassettes, CDs, crowded music stalls and songs that travelled from one car radio to another.
The industry never really mourned the fallen Setlhareng.com but somehow Vee Mampeezy and Eskimos were aware that music knows how to mourn better than words. It was as if the old songs had been sleeping somewhere beneath the concrete of where the tree used to stand, waiting for someone to press play. For a few hours, time appeared to lose its grip in the centre of Gaborone City as the years between then and now seemed to melt away as Vee Mampeezy and Eskimos stood together on stage, a glimpse of an era when Black Money Makers (BMM) was not merely a record label, but a musical family whose sound seemed to have taken over the streets.
This moment was a reminder of what once was. As Eskimos walked onto the stage in their black-and-white All Kasi stripes, the sight alone seemed to awaken memories buried somewhere between old music videos, crowded shows and the days when kwaito kwasa ruled the airwaves. When the music started the first notes were enough to change the atmosphere and Eskimos’ Maskente classic did not feel like an old song. Maskente is contrafactum of Leonard Dembo’s Chiketete and when the four boys performed it felt like an old photograph suddenly coming to life.
For those who had followed Eskimos from their Gaborone West days, the song carried the dust of G-wawa, the schoolyards, the streets and the youthful energy that eventually carried the quartet into the national music scene. It was a reminder of where Eskimos came from before the stages became bigger.
Then came the performance of Eskimos’ Tumdara and the revellers’ response was almost instinctive as they sang along like the song had never left them. There was something almost strange about hearing a song from another era being sung with the same enthusiasm years later. It showed that music can outlive the circumstances that created it so Tumdara was not simply being performed but it was being remembered.
‘Tsotsi mover’, Giwawa hit first lines were even more commanding and as if the fans were asked to move aside as Eskimos took over the stage and basically the entire Main Mall space area. The Giwawa performance journey became even more personal because Giwawa is Gaborone West in musical form. This is a song carrying the identity of the place that had shaped the Eskimos boys before the country knew their names. Eskimos is group made up of Keitshupile 'Mandla' Mokwena, Kagiso 'Skhejo' Ketswantwa, Kabo 'Zynne' Mmolawa, and Goitsemodimo 'Javas' Binang. Those who were there in 2004 when Giwawa was making waves understood that it was the sound of young men from an ordinary neighbourhood turning their surroundings into something extraordinary.
For a moment, the distance between the schoolboys who once played football together and the seasoned performers standing before the crowd seemed to disappear. Thanks to FNB, the boys were back in a bigger stage. Giwawa was followed by “Tshaba Earth”, and this hit was part Eric Ramco Records’s Earth Worxk volumes, the same compilation that brought Vee Mampeezy’s Sekukuni hit. Mpulele, My babe, Oya galalela, Ke go senka o seo, all of Eskimos’songs came one after another, each opening another drawer of memory. The real emotional shift however came when Vee Mampeezy joined them and suddenly, it was not only Eskimos' history being revisited but it was a flash of BMM. The stage became a window into the mid-2000s, when Vee Mampeezy, Eskimos, Mingo and Exodus represented a generation of young Botswana musicians who made their own sound, build their own following and create an identity around kwaito kwasa.
Vee Mampeezy and Eskimos performing together brought back the image of what BMM had represented at its height. Back then, this was a collective of young artists pushing kwaito kwasa genre forward and creating music that was deeply connected to Botswana's streets instead of copying the South African Kwaito synonymous with likes of Mandoza and Mdu Masilela.
Although life has taken them to different paths over the years, the chemistry between Vee Mampeezy and Eskimos was unmistakable. When Eskimos performed their song “Mozobozo”, featuring Vee and Matsieng, the past became even more vivid while the inclusion of Old Naledi traditional group Mafitlhakgosi added another layer to the performance.
Then the stage shifted again when people’s favourite Vee Mampeezy song, Ola Kasi was performed. If the earlier songs had brought back memories, Ola Kasi with that music video shot in Zola in mind seemed to drag an entire period of Vee Mampeezy and Eskimos' career onto the stage. Together with Mafitlhakgosi still on stage they brought the Old Naledi influence into the mix.
The Vee Mampeezy and Eskioms choice of songs was dominated by the old sound but surprisingly there was the new audience of ‘Ma2k’ as Gen X is often called. But perhaps the most symbolic moment of the night came with one of Vee Mampeezy’s earliest hits Lamalanga. Back in the early 2000s, the four young men were not yet the established Eskimos but they were part of Vee Mampeezy's dancing crew.
Eskimos were boys around a rising star in Vee Mampeezy and over the years they learnt, watched, performed and waited for their own opportunity. Later when they released Faratlhatlha around 2004, they were standing beside the Letlhale hitmaker as artists in their own right and that was the poetry of the moment. The men who once danced behind Vee Mampeezy started sharing the stage with him as equals.
Lamalanga took the audience back to the period when Makimo as they are affectionally known were still finding their feet. Vee Mampeezy was building the foundation of what would become BMM. Although BMM was known for its star group Exodus, Eskimos story reached its heights under Eric Ramco Records with the release of Faratlhatlha. Eskimos’ story begun long before the BMM record label became a household name with their first offering Back 2 Kasi. Eskimos were never part of BMM but the record label included then kid-sensation Mingo Touch and Exodus who were Eskimos’ competition with release of hits such as Manyoloi and Masupatsela.
According to what Vee Mampeezy said on stage his relationship with Eskimos begun with friendship and dreams. He took time to narrate the Aromat show which he says were one of those early moments when the dream began to look real. He noted that he and Eskimos had volunteered to perform at the bus rank, but impressed enough to earn P500 which was a lot of money at the time. Vee Mampeezy added that more gigs followed and, eventually, bigger stages.
Standing on that stage this past week decades later, the significance of that journey was impossible to miss. For a brief moment, BMM existed again not as a label, but as a formal reunion. BMM was not only packed with music talent like Exodus, Mingo but it was popularised dancers like Coming Soon, Mshinto and Majaivane. But there was something bittersweet about the whole thing. The BMM era had moved on and most of these vocalists and dancers have gone their separate ways. Some changed musical directions while some disappeared from the spotlight. Others like Eskimos and Vee Mampeezy continued to evolve.
Vee Mampeezy and Eskimos may not see each other now like they used to but that night, the music proved that history does not always need an archive but sometimes, it only needs a stage and FNB provided it. Vee Mampeezy and Eskimos' performance became a living photo album from the moment the first song turned the first page right up to the time the last song closed the circle between yesterday and today.
Vee Mampeezy and members of Eskimos had aged as well as some members of audience but the songs had not. Hits like Giwawa and Taku Taku remained frozen in time, waiting for the right beat to bring them back and perhaps that was the most powerful thing about Vee Mampeezy and Eskimos sharing the stage. They did not resurrect BMM or the golden age of the Kwaito kwasa but they resurrected its memory in Setlhareng. For one night, the music that once thrived in the tree’s shadow returned within walking distance of its old home.