School children release album but lack cash

PATRICIA MAGANU
Staff Writer | Wednesday January 20, 2010 00:00

 

The youngsters released their first album in 2004 but were unable to sell because they could not get it on the market due to lack of funds; and now they find themselves in the same predicament on their second album.

Small Mavella is a kwaito pair of two teenage brothers, Lungani Diane, 14, and Vella Diane, 12, who say that they started singing when they were as young as five years old.  Though they hail from Serowe they both reside and go to school in Tonota. Lungani is in Form Two while Vella is in Standard Seven.

Lungani says that when they failed to sell their album in 2004 they decided to raise funds so they could be able to record another album.  'We raised funds by singing in the malls and we finally managed to release the new album towards the end of last year, but now we have reached a dead end again because we do not have money to print copies of the album so we can put it on the market,' he said.

Lungani said that they chose to sing to have something to fall back on if they were not lucky enough to go for further studies.  Lungani says that they sing about social problems.  'We talk about AIDS, passion killings (crime) and prostitution because these things happen everyday and we are trying to tell people to refrain from those things through music,' he said.  Their father, Vusi Notha, said that when they were young his children showed interest in music and he decided to support them in their dream. ' I had a blind friend who was a musician and the boys loved to play with his guitar, I then realised that a guitar was a bit hard so I bought them keyboards to practise with,' he said.

He said from then on he just started encouraging them. He said that the other reason why it is hard for his children to find sponsorship is that he wants to keep them in the home and in school.  'Stables have sometimes shown interest in them but I want them to stay with me so I can be able to keep them in school because if they go somewhere they might end up abandoning school,' he said.  He said that has resulted in many producers being reluctant to working with his children because they want to take them and stay with, a move he finds risky for their education.