Khama�s dance jerks up Thobane
Thalefang Charles | Friday October 7, 2016 16:09
The President and Minister Thapelo Olopeng were busy relishing on some dikgware beat as they danced to Thobane. The media only captured about 50 seconds of the dance but that was enough to reignite and revive the nine-year-old song. That moment, when Khama, who is well known to be rather timid to dance, unless there is Polka and he has just won a motorbike race or elections, let down all his defences in front of international guests, proved just how timeless Thobane is.
This week we caught up with Dr Vom, whose real name is Kangangwani Mogocha, to share about what a minute of Khama’s dance did to his song and fame.
After agreeing to meet at the Main Mall in Gaborone for an interview we realised it was a bad choice of venue because it turned out that Dr Vom’s celebrity status has suddenly reached fever pitch.
“Everywhere I walk, people are happy and congratulate me for the song. People want to buy the song. It’s strange. It’s like Thobane is a new release. I have been invited for interviews by Btv and radios. Later I will be with DJ Sly at RB2 to talk about the performance at the stadium. It’s crazy,” he reveals.
Although the Main Mall’s walkway appeared to have recovered from the hangover of the BOT50 fever because it is different from days before the Independence Day when it was all blue, black and white, Dr Vom has not. He is still basking in the glory of his BOT50 act. He walks tall through the mall, with his peculiar facial hairstyle that looks like he is wearing some blond reins extending from the chin to the back of his neck – nobody could miss him and is greeted by almost everyone. We could not have a decent conversation with him without being interrupted. So we decided to walk to the Mmegi offices where we could have some sort of privacy without his fans’ interruptions.
“It has been nine-years with this song. The song was released in November 28, 2007. Ministers, ambassadors, dikgosi, elders and children have risen and danced to this song every time I played it but until Independence eve, we had never moved the President to stand up and dance,” Dr Vom narrated.
Dr Vom oozes with excitement and fulfillment when he narrates what Khama’s dance meant to him and the song. He interprets the dance as the song’s “ultimate achievement”.
The song has seen a spike in the local radio station airplay. This week AFSTEREO Botswana, which provides insights on the music airplay in Botswana, reported that Thobane has shot into the Local AirPlay Top20 Chart. Interestingly, the song did not feature anywhere in the Top20 chart before Khama’s dance last week. So what is special about Thobane?
The song features a heavy weight traditional dance artist Ditiro ‘DT’ Loero and Dr Vom agrees that he actually made the song what it is. He talks very highly of DT, almost groupie-like. “I remember when we recorded the song. We were actually finished and DT suggested as “guide” of how I should sing in the song. When we later listened to DT’s suggested guide we were so impressed that we decided that that must be the song,” said Dr Vom.
He described the studio moment when DT added his part on the song like a scene from the Hollywood film Notorious when Notorious B.I.G made his classic Juicy.
“DT doesn’t write. In the studio he would just listen and when it is his turn to sing he would immediately turn your ordinary song into a major classic. That is how talented the guy is,” says Dr Vom.
With an infectious dikhwaere beat produced and programmed by Lame Letlaatla and Tumelo Mafoko respectively, together with DT’s cheeky lyrics laced with veiled meanings, it was recipe for a classic. When the song came out it was an instant hit. Everywhere Dr Vom performed people stood up and danced to it.
In 2014 at the Dithubaruba Cultural Festival at Ntsweng, Molepolole, the song caused a choking dust as Bakwena, young and old, converged onto the dance area and beat the ground so hard that they raised a blinding and dense brown dust from a place famous for dust. Dr Vom was performing with the legendary Rangers Marena choir from Kgatleng. It was the day Dithubaruba experienced for the first time, Rangers Marena ladies go down and literally roll on the dirt ground like possessed creatures during a show.
On why he thinks Thobane compels people to dance, Dr Vom responds: “I think it’s spiritual,” before he jokingly retracts, “No, don’t write that!” He conjures up another reason he could attribute to why Thobane is such an infectious song that could get everyone, even the reserved President to stand-up and dance. But at the end he admits it is something he could not explain.
Dr Vom concedes that Thobane has swallowed all his music. People do not know that I have six albums and that Thobane is the fourth album. “I have been making music since early 2001. The now famous Slyzer, Ponga, Massy and Swaager Lady used to dance for me back in the days when they were going by the name, Spinning Girls.”
Thobane was an incredible album. The fusion of dikhwaere to a slow dance beat was still new and became an instant hit. The album featured popular dikhwaere folk songs like Chaba di maketse, Ba etla and City. City is a tribute to Dr Vom’s friend, a famous Rollers and Zebras fan who hails from Mahalapye but stays in Molopolole. It is another one of his songs that evokes passionate dances especially if heard in Molepolole. The song is intoxicating when sung by Rollers fans at Bee Six Bar at Molepolole especially after their team’s victory.
The follow up album to Thobane titled Ke Tshwana le Moshe flopped. Although he invested in the Moses’ image of oversized brown biblical cloak, the fans kept asking only for Thobane.
Dr Vom revealed that he has been in the studio working with DT and Batswana should expect fresh music that would rival Thobane.
But right now Thobane is up again after Khama’s BOT50 dance to it and it remains to be seen whether another duet of Dr Vom and DT could produce another timeless song.