Tomeletso Sereetsi and his band The Natives are steadily establishing themselves as classy performers.
Sereetsi and The Natives serenaded the crowd at the Jazz X-Change show, which was held at the President Hotel on Saturday. He dished out a fulfilling performance.
The songs, which got the crowd cheering were Thaa Kokome, Ngwanangu Waenda and She Got Me Praying For Us.
Apart from the good arrangement, the three songs also have deep meaning and Sereetsi decided to give a brief explanation of each of them before playing. “Thaa Kokome is a Setswana phrase used to describe the action that results from one hitting and object into another and then it gets stuck.
But in this sense it follows the common belief saying that a man is like an axe, he can be borrowed. But the problem is that sometimes a man who gets borrowed ends up sticking, just like an axe does sometimes when you hit a piece of wood to cut. It gets stuck,” he said as the crowd shyly murmured.
Ngwanangu Waenda is a popular Kalanga folk song, but Sereetsi and The Natives gave it a fresh feel.
She Got Me Praying is a dedication to his partner who she saluted for her love and care. “Fortunately she is here. I did this song for her because she has been inspirational and she has made me a proud father of two children,” he said to a rousing applause.
But the track that really got the crowd excited was Robert, a song about a gay marriage that went wrong.
It is a story of a man whose family is happy to hear that he wants to tie the knot, but they are stunned when he announces that the bride’s name is Robert. Before playing the song, Sereetsi briefly explained that it was inspired by a difficult assignment he was sent to cover in 2006 while still working as a reporter for Echo newspaper. “I do not know whether that was a party or a wedding,” he said.
