A Dim Year For the Stars
Monkagedi Gaothobogwe | Monday December 21, 2015 15:54
It has been generally a quite year in as far as hits are concerned, with the traditional festive season hitmaker, Charma Gal, yet again being miles ahead of the pack. We look at the stars that took a stab at the shine this year.
The Shining Stars
Mahempe
The funny hit song by Mahalapye youngster, Kebaemetse Gaboeme, has snow-balled into a monster hit among lovers of traditional pop. According to the performer and producer of the song, Mahempe was actually released during November 2014.
Maghebula
He never fails to excite his market with his releases, and this year has not been any different. Maghebula’s latest hit is Sheika Mmele, and has seen sales of the new album doing very well in the market.
Franco
This year, Franco continued to cement his reputation as the boss of local rhumba with the latest album Zenze Ke Eng, surpassing expectations.
The Dimming Stars
Vee Mampeezy
Vee Mapeezy leads the list of the stars that tried hard and failed miserably this year to produce a festive season tune. He put in a lot of effort and ambition as he aimed to produce a monster hit whose waves will reverberate across Africa, establishing him as a continental giant. Vee produced a song called Africa, and went to South Africa to shoot a video for the would-be-hit, directed by one of the finest music video makers in that land.
Vee’s song, Africa, miserably failed to excite even local fans, while its video, full of South African children and the country’s flag, attracted unexpected reactions. Vee would quickly replace the song Africa with a new song promotion, Happy, which was touted as a the song for December. Once again, Happy followed in the footsteps of Africa, as it failed to raise any excitement reminiscent of Vee Mampeezy. of yore He will sure hope 2016 will be better.
A.T.I
The flamboyant pop star who in recent years has proven to be the next music force, is literally nowhere to be seen this year in as far as music production is concerned. He should be worried that he failed to produce not even a single or mixtape.
Slizer
Just when was the last time Slizer produced a hit? The sexy performer who has not had a monster hit for a while, also did not have any album to her name this year. She has been keeping the fires burning with tabloid scoops about her escapades that have been juicier than her music.
Maxy
Aka the Queen of Sands used to be considered No.1 in cultural music. She would also demonstrate her versatility in gospel music, pop music, but of late her new music seems to have gone dry.
Jujuboy
He became the embodiment of urban culture thanks to that sexual fetishism song, Hurt Me, which took the youth by storm. But that was back in 2011 and subsequent efforts and experiments have not yielded similar results. Recently he was featured in kwaito troupe Eskimos’ album, another kwaito group that has found it tricky to recapture the magic of their debut album under DDS Records.
Mapetla
His first early releases were simply untouchable. Mapetla has since followed those success stories with a couple of releases that have been nowhere near the class he first burst onto the scene with. He is working on a kwaito album with RB2’s T.H.A.B.O for 2016.
Kgotla
Since the release of his hit track Matshidiso, the Kanye-born artist has since gone through changes; born-again Christian, pastor, church owner, as he abandoned the pop culture.
Captain Dira
From the hit album Mashobane, to the hit mosakaso album, and later venturing into movies, Captain Dira is literally missing in music circles in recent years and 2015 has not been an exception.
Banjo Mosele
Another entertaining artist who is failing to recapture his magic in recent years. The man who brought us the festive season hit Ntsa E Jele Ntsanyana, some eight years ago, has failed to give us another festive season cheer.