Solo B - towards a viable music artistry

JERRY KAI-LEWIS
Correspondent | Friday January 8, 2010 00:00

 

For this reason, under Sir Seretse Khama, the government decided that education would be free for all. For a big country with a tiny population the focus was on conventional occupations and careers such as accountants, lawyers, engineers, economists, medical doctors, nurses, teachers and the like - areas that were, mistakenly, believed to be the only ones with a direct relation to economic development.

This philosophy meant that any other pursuit was seen as a waste of time. Batswana wishing to pursue careers in the arts, especially musicians, were frowned and looked down upon, with the logic that they were wasting brain capacity needed for the country's development. Solomon Bame Monyame, popularly known as Solo B. was born into this world.

He was the oldest of three children born in Cape Town, South Africa to a migrant Motswana worker father and a Cape mother. The Monyame moved to Botswana a year after independence settling in what was then the inner city slum of Bontleng.  Monyame senior, Mokenti 'Ribs' Monyame got a job as a waiter at the President Hotel. The man set about giving his children the best education he could afford and thus enrolled the young Solomon in the newly opened, and first English medium private school, Thornhill Primary.

It was a feat sending the children of a mere waiter to such a prestigious school owing to the steep school fees. It was seen as a school for the sons and daughters of diplomats, ministers, expatriates, and the local social and economic elites.  Before diamonds, agriculture, especially cattle farming, was the country's economic mainstay. On the other hand Monyame senior sent whatever money he could to his brother back at his home village of Mmadinare to invest in raising cattle. Solomon, upon completing his studies at Thornhill went to another private school Maruapula School.

It was at MAP that Solomon's interest in music grew. Earth, Wind and Fire, Tower of Power, Carlos Santana, and the disco craze that was to follow left an impression on his young ear.

'A game that mom and I would play was for me to recognise the different singers and guys in the groups. So, from an early age I was being educated on the different components of music: who played, wrote and arranged the songs. Looking back you could say that's how I started my role in copyrights,' he said.

Encouraged by his math teacher and classical music lover, David Slater, Solomon excelled at music and, as a high school student, went on to write pieces for the then Gaborone Music Society.  At home, a spare room was converted into a studio where him and his friends would jam for hours after school and on weekends.

After graduating from high school in 1979, Solomon worked odd jobs for two years before he was finally able to leave for Luther College in the U.S.  Originally intending to study Management Accounting he later settled for Media Studies. 'Mathematics wasn't one of my strong subjects!' he added. At Luther, where he was now going by the name Solo B, Monyame got his first exposure to music production while working odd jobs to pay for his boarding, books and living expenses.

'After achieving honors after my first year, my dad advised I talked to the people at the bursary section of the Ministry of Education for sponsorship. I was told that they couldn't sponsor me since my dad owned a business. I went back to being a janitor, working at the school cafeteria, being a valet, a grounds man and even washing dishes at restaurants to sponsor my schooling and stay in the US. The deal I made with my dad was that he would pay my school fees and I would do the rest.'

Also at Luther Solo formed a band with music students that did covers of popular jazz and rock songs, while at the same time playing critical roles at the recitals of his band mates.

'At the start of my final year we won a competition where we would travel the entire US and play at different bars and clubs every night for a year. After that year we should have had enough material to record an album. But this would mean that I would have to miss a whole year of school. My dad wouldn't stand for it. I had to tell the guys and they were devastated. It was the hardest thing I had to do in my life. But I was happy I came home.'

Back at home Solo B settled for a job at his father's liquor store. Media jobs then were mainly in the preserve of government and the wages were low. But eight months after the government opened the first commercial radio station Radio Botswana 2, Solo B found himself as a DJ at the station, rekindling a love for radio he had developed while working at his college radio station. At this time he had formed a group Apex with another returning student, David Molosi, known as Skizo in music circles, who had just finished a degree in Marketing at Howard University in Washington DC.

While working for RB2, Solo and Skizo would make beats at the former's home studio with the most basic of sequencing software and play them at parties around Gaborone. Not long after, in 1994 to be precise, together with Skizo, Dolio (Draztik of Unreleased Records in South Africa), IQ (now an Industrial Designer in New York), Sounds (Martin Mabutho of Mnet Africa), Shiny Kgakge and few others, they formed the first pop group in Botswana, Tribal Monks which played a blend of hip hop, kwaito and house.

It was at this time that Solo B's activism role for the recognition of the rights of artists began. 'Harassing' government to recognise and enforce payment of royalties to artists, Solo went on to rub a few bureaucrats the wrong way. Unable to fight alone he joined and chaired the Media Institute of Southern Africa chapter in Botswana and used it as a platform to lobby for the rights of artists and journalists.

Although it is a popularly held belief that there were no copyright laws in Botswana, as a country that inherited its legal framework from the British, the laws had always been there. 'What we were lacking was implementation. And this lack of implementation meant dire economic consequences for recording artists.' Fifteen years later the laws have been amended to meet current realities. Although the road to implementation is still being navigated, Solo B believes that, as a democracy, it is only a matter of time before the government made it a priority.

Thanks to people like Solo B artists today receive recognition for their music and accrue royalties from advertising agencies, cellular ring tones and the like. On the music side although Tribal Monks went defunct it bore a number of solo artists and senior producers.

Solo B is a music executive. His music studio, Mud Hut, formed in 1997 to meet the commercial needs of local and multinational businesses is the leading recording house in the country and plays a leading role in ensuring the rights of his charges. Recently it did the score for the Hollywood production of Alexander McCall Smith's popular novel Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency, directed by the late Anthony Minghella and starring Jill Scott.

Apart from Mud Hut, Solo B also runs Small House Records - home to some of the biggest names in local music.

'Getting here has been a marathon. Government officials and even the corporate entities were averse to recognising the Arts as jobs. Today they are all jumping onboard and this is good for the industry. The process of getting that regime in place, the mechanics and not the ideology of it, is an ongoing process. We have achieved a lot on our own, but there is still a whole lot more left to do.'