Borankana: the untimely death of a genre

GASEBALWE SERETSE
Staff Writer | Tuesday August 31, 2010 00:00

 

Critics were elated because it looked like Batswana had found their voice, but alas, now only a decade later, this genre seems to be slowly declining.

Who could ever forget one of the pioneers of the genre Segomotso 'Kgobola' Nkgomo who introduced this style to Batswana? When the man sang his borankana hits in his gruff voice, Batswana sat up and noticed.  While Kgobola may have not made a killing with his catchy tunes, what he pioneered was soon embraced by younger musicians. 

The award-winning Machesa were some of the groups that took the baton from Kgobola as his star started to wane.  When the group won a Kora award, Batswana happy that this country was getting recognised musically on the African continent.

Olebile 'Maxy' Sedumedi also commercialised Tsutsube and she soon became a force to reckon with.Soon enough, traditional music groups mushroomed everywhere the emergence of groups such as Mokorwana, Dinyetse, Dithakga tsa Mmino, Dikakapa and Culture Spears, just to mention a few.  Music critics hailed the birth of contemporary traditional music and they could only predict that it could rise and rise.

Just when everybody was happy with the new developments on the music scene, everything started going pear-shaped as the market became saturated with fly-by-night artists and some of the big names started declining.

As mentioned before, Maxy was one of the forces to be reckoned with in the genre but sadly as her star was rising she relocated to South Africa, where she joined music producer and artist Sello 'Chicco' Twala in a controversial deal. 

While Maxy still remains one of respected musicians in the country, things are not the same as in the past.Lately, the outspoken artist has released a gospel album and to some this is a pointer that all is not well in the traditional music genre for her.

When quizzed by Showbiz in an earlier interview, Maxy quipped: 'Time will tell how long I will be singing gospel.  I don't want to say when I will be releasing my cultural music album, I don't want to even talk about it right now because I am selling gospel now.'  Is the love affair between Maxy and traditional music over?The versatile star has also dabbled in Afro-pop and disco in the past.

Shirley Mokoka, another traditional music artist who at one point was a leading artist in the country has also reportedly joined the king of South African disco music, Dan Tshanda.  As Tshanda specialises in disco, it has been suspected by some that this is an indication that Mokaka wants to move to the genre.

Despite all this, she has denied it in an earlier interview with Showbiz: 'I am not going to create any confusion for myself and audience, when my album comes out, there will be no disco in it, that's what you should know.'It remains to be seen if the artist will keep her promise.

Matsieng caused quite a stir with their 2007 released Setswana Sa Bo Rre containing the hit Tinto.  The album was a great success selling even across the border in countries such as South Africa and possibly Zimbabwe.

The resounding success of Matsieng's lyrically explicit Tinto attracted many pretenders with some penning some controversial lyrics in order to emulate the group in vain.

Sadly the group has failed to repeat the same feat and it can be safely said it is struggling to make a serious comeback.  Could this be the end?

Another group that has made a mark in contemporary traditional music is Culture Spears who broke into the music scene with their runaway hit Kulenyane.  The group became one of Botswana's successes with its music being popular in the neighbouring South Africa where they performed a number of times.

Towards the end of last year, some members of the group undertook a project called Ekentolo which contained some Afro-pop songs and some of their followers feared that they were leaving the traditional dance genre, a charge that the group has since denied.

Dikakapa were another group that was promising. the group with its muscular male members was recently nominated for Kora Awards but since their failed bid, they have not made much noise.

Other individuals who were revered in the recent past but seem to be waning include Mponang 'Gong Master' Ketshabile (who has ironically released an above average album recently), Ditiro 'DT' Leero, Moses Malepela also-known-as Shumba Ratshega and Johnny Kobedi.

The common trend nowadays is that traditional dance music stars are either jumping the ship or releasing mildly received albums. The big question is: Is contemporary traditional music dying a natural death in Botswana?