tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/lesotho-culture-99356/articlesLesotho culture – The Conversation2022-01-09T08:31:04Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1740632022-01-09T08:31:04Z2022-01-09T08:31:04ZBook review: Zakes Mda’s subversive take on Lesotho’s traditions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439684/original/file-20220106-13-y7in1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Portrait of a Lesotho shepherd, Ntoaesele Mashongoane.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">JOHN WESSELS/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2019 at the Abantu Book Festival in Soweto, South African writer and artist Zakes Mda was celebrating the publication of his final novel, <em><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/book/zulus-new-york/9781415210154">The Zulus of New York</a></em>, when he made a <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/entertainment/2019-12-09-mdas-new-novel-confession-caps-abantu-book-festival/">surprise announcement</a>. He had changed his mind and was writing another novel. He explained that “sometimes when you are a writer a story finds you and attacks you. It forces you to narrate it.” </p>
<p>The story is set in Lesotho, a landlocked and mountainous country neighbouring South Africa. It covers the growth of a kheleke – a wandering minstrel – and his career and the heights it is possible to reach, before tragedy engulfs and silences his accordion.</p>
<p>In <em><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/book/wayfarers-hymns/9781415210826">Wayfarers’ Hymns</a></em>, the author draws on his early life in Lesotho, where he joined his father in exile, and where he later taught at the national university. This novel re-connects the author to the land and culture of <a href="https://www.wantedonline.co.za/art-design/2017-02-01-how-the-basotho-blanket-became-the-brand-identity-of-a-nation/">colourful blankets</a>, <a href="https://pan-african-music.com/en/introducing-lesothos-accordion-music/">Famo musicians</a> and feuding factions, or “musical gangsters” as academic Nokuthula Mazibuko-Msimang calls them in a recent <a href="https://theconversation.com/zakes-mda-on-his-latest-novel-set-in-lesothos-musical-gang-wars-170839">interview</a> with Mda.</p>
<h2>Subverting traditions</h2>
<p>The central character is a nameless boy-child kheleke – “the eloquent one” – who sings the praises of his sister Moliehi. Despite the abundance of compliments sung by her brother, she describes him as a lazy <em>leloabe</em> (vagabond) and <em>molelere</em> (wanderer), with the connotations of a wastrel. But as the kheleke narrates the novel, it is his viewpoint that wins over. He explains in the first line that “she was the one I sang my hymns to” and he makes her name and beauty famous.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/zakes-mda-on-his-latest-novel-set-in-lesothos-musical-gang-wars-170839">Zakes Mda on his latest novel, set in Lesotho's musical gang wars</a>
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<p>The tradition is explained thus:</p>
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<p>A great hymn begins with the kheleke introducing himself to the world, repeating his name and his father’s, against his father’s if his father was a reprobate as men tend to be, and praising the virtues of his clan, his village and his chief.</p>
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<p>And throughout Mda plays with this convention as the kheleke himself remains nameless, it is his “cult” (band) “of the arum-lily”, Mohalalitoe, that becomes famous. And although the kheleke sings about his father, it is a father who is missing, having died in a deep goldmine. He could not be buried among his kin in ancestral land and his spirit remains unappeased. In many ways it is the search for his father’s body that propels the action in the novel.</p>
<p>This apparently patriarchal form of music also praises the land, “even when the hymn is a lamentation. Even when the land is barren.” Before moving on to the sister: “A kheleke dwells on his sister and her unsurpassed qualities of womanhood.” Again the irony here is that the kheleke must sing about a “formidable woman in his life”, if he doesn’t have a sister, then his <em>rakhali</em> (paternal aunt) is the best he can do. </p>
<p>Most importantly, “No self-respecting kheleke sings the praises of his wife in public, lest he invites vultures to his homestead.” And yet the song the kheleke becomes famous for <em>U Ka Se Nqete</em> celebrates female polyamory, or at least the ability of women to take different sexual partners while their husbands are working in the gold mines of Johannesburg.</p>
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<img alt="A bald man in a suit jacket stands in a garden smiling at the camera." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439686/original/file-20220106-23-109v0nq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439686/original/file-20220106-23-109v0nq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439686/original/file-20220106-23-109v0nq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439686/original/file-20220106-23-109v0nq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439686/original/file-20220106-23-109v0nq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439686/original/file-20220106-23-109v0nq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439686/original/file-20220106-23-109v0nq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Zakes Mda.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">LEONARDO CENDAMO/Getty Images</span></span>
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<p>This song that celebrates cuckoldry becomes an unexpected hit. The duet that the kheleke creates with his girlfriend, the dancer Maleshoane, is what cements the success of the song. It’s upbeat and funny, and though the men claim to dislike it, they all sing along.</p>
<h2>Musical gangsters</h2>
<p>In the ensuing battle between rival bands, the kheleke’s Cult of the Arum Lily directly challenge The Cult of the Train, an antagonism that leads to his downfall. Unknown to him, the cults also operate illegal mining operations and, as his father’s age-mate Tau ea Khale explains, things have changed greatly since the days when “warriors were warriors and musicians were musicians”.</p>
<p>The gangs arose in 1999, escalating in 2007, when Tau ea Khale describes being in prison and hearing of “inmates sentenced to years because they killed others over music … Mosotho killing another Mosotho for a song … boys who used to look after cattle together.” It is this snapshot of Lesotho gang warfare that Mda expertly captures in this novel, though it also celebrates music, composition and creativity itself.</p>
<h2>Meditation on masculinity and femininity</h2>
<p>Mda develops a significant meditation on masculinity as <em>Wayfarers’ Hymns</em> continues the pattern of Siphiwo Mahala’s <em><a href="https://www.panmacmillan.co.za/authors/siphiwo-mahala/when-a-man-cries/9781770104075">When A Man Cries</a></em>, Thando Mgqolozana’s <em><a href="https://cassavarepublic.biz/product/a-man-who-is-not-a-man-2/">A Man Who is Not a Man</a></em>, and Masande Ntshanga’s <em><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/book/reactive/9781415207192">The Reactive</a></em>, all of which consider <em>ulwaluko</em> (traditional circumcision ritual) and what it means to be a man in southern Africa (during the HIV/AIDS pandemic).</p>
<p>A continued refrain amongst the men of his band is that the kheleke is disloyal because he is not circumcised and must “graduate from an initiation school” to be a man. He responds: “All I wanted was to be a kheleke of note, playing beautiful music, appearing on television … Radio.” But he is pushed by an attack on his sister to write a song which directly challenges The Cult of the Train and therein lies his downfall.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/book-review-sindiwe-magonas-devastating-uplifting-story-of-south-african-women-166186">Book review: Sindiwe Magona's devastating, uplifting story of South African women</a>
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<p>Mda develops different notions of freedom – in performance, singing, music and mourning – by bringing back the much-loved character of Toloki from his celebrated 1995 novel <em><a href="https://www.oxford.co.za/book/9780195714982-ways-of-dying#.Ydb5sS8RpQI">Ways of Dying</a></em>. Toloki seeks more ways of mourning, away from the township and the HIV/AIDS bereavements of South Africa, with the deaths of the Famo musicians in Lesotho. Although he is a background figure in <em>Wayfarers’ Hymns</em>, Toloki provides ample comic respite from the posturing and machismo of the gang warfare. He also challenges us to rethink categories, bringing his performance of ‘grief’ to Lesotho and then juxtaposing it with his own genuine grief at losing the love of his life.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439664/original/file-20220106-15-cg5jd6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book cover with the words 'Wayfarers' Hymns Zakes Mda' and an illustration, in greens and browns, of a man in a blanket standing on a rock looking out over hills, the moon full, an accordion and flowers filling up the page." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439664/original/file-20220106-15-cg5jd6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439664/original/file-20220106-15-cg5jd6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439664/original/file-20220106-15-cg5jd6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439664/original/file-20220106-15-cg5jd6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439664/original/file-20220106-15-cg5jd6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1182&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439664/original/file-20220106-15-cg5jd6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1182&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439664/original/file-20220106-15-cg5jd6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1182&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Mda has always written strong female characters, but in <em>Wayfarers’ Hymns</em> he also classically undercuts notions of femininity by making Moliehi a woman who loves another woman, providing unexpected female khelekes and featuring female gangsters called MaRussia like Mme Mpuse. She offers her sage advice to the boy-child kheleke when he sings with her. She tells him, “One day you will be a sought-after kheleke. But never be led by your penis. That’s what has destroyed great men. Be led by the music.” The <em>Wayfarers’ Hymns</em> are songs worth listening to.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174063/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lizzy Attree works for Blake Friedmann Literary Agency, where Isobel Dixon represents Zakes Mda.</span></em></p>Set in the music wars of Lesotho, the new novel by the South African author tells of a wandering minstrel whose hit song leads to his downfall.Lizzy Attree, Adjunct Professor, Richmond American International UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1708392021-11-15T14:06:13Z2021-11-15T14:06:13ZZakes Mda on his latest novel, set in Lesotho’s musical gang wars<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430839/original/file-20211108-21-1gx3sb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A masked herdsman in Lesotho.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Edwin Remsberg/The Image Bank via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Zakes Mda is one of South Africa’s best-loved novelists – though he is also a celebrated playwright, children’s book author and an increasingly visible painter. His latest novel, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/book/wayfarers-hymns/9781415210826">Wayfarers’ Hymns</a>, is at once full of drama and mirth, set in Lesotho and playing out in the bloody world of famo musicians. At a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze1piSqrasA">launch of the book</a> at the University of Pretoria, Dr Nokuthula Mazibuko-Msimang interviewed Mda about it. This is an edited transcription of that interview.</em></p>
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<p><strong>Nokuthula Mazibuko-Msimang</strong> I was intrigued that yes, you talk about the culture of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/sotho-south-sotho-or-basotho">Basotho</a> and the <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/magazine/musical-instruments-lesotho">instruments</a> of Basotho, but not in the way that you’ve done before, as a kind of healing salve to our colonial oppression and apartheid and so on. This is a different ballgame. Tell us a little bit about what inspired you. And about the process of writing this <a href="https://www.newframe.com/sharp-read-the-hymns-of-a-kheleke/">book about musical gangsters</a>, really.</p>
<p><strong>Zakes Mda</strong> This book is centred around <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/magazine/famo-music-lesotho">famo music</a>. Which is a genre of music in Lesotho. Very popular there, predominantly the instrument there is the accordion, it used to be the concertina before. So Basothos have taken the concertina and the accordion and turned them into Sesotho traditional instruments. And it’s a kind of music that’s full of poetry. And the poetry is known as hymns, <em>difela</em>, but these are secular hymns, they are not religious hymns. And so that is why the title is <em>Wayfarers’ Hymns</em>. </p>
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<p>Wayfarers are travellers. The title comes from the Sesotho name of the genre, it’s <em>difela tsa batsamai</em>, which means the hymns of those who traverse the land … Now, I grew up knowing this music because I grew up in Lesotho. But it’s only recently that I learned new things about it, which are <a href="https://chimurengachronic.co.za/accordion-cowboys/">recent developments</a>, gang wars, the wars, amongst the <a href="https://www.thereporter.co.ls/2021/08/15/famo-gang-violence-leads-to-internal-displacement/">gangs</a> that are led by musicians themselves. </p>
<p>So these musicians have evolved into gang leaders. And every weekend in <a href="https://www.lesotho-info.co.za/country/province/29/mafeteng">Mafeteng</a>, which is a district in Lesotho, there are their funerals of musicians who have died in these wars, of their followers, of the chorus boys and so on. Fighting for territory, fighting for followers, but also fighting for <a href="https://www.mineralscouncil.org.za/work/illegal-mining">illegal mining</a>. </p>
<p>The illegal mining that happens here in Gauteng, in Welkom and so on, is actually led by the musicians, the leaders of these gangs. So I was fascinated to hear of this because I’ve never read about it, even in the newspapers. Sometimes you will hear that four <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2021/04/30/the-plight-of-south-africa-s-zama-zama-illegal-miners//"><em>zama zamas</em></a>, by which they mean the illegal miners, were found dead on the roadside or something like that. And they never dig deeper, who were they, why were they there? And then right into the fact that the mining operations, the illegal mining operations are actually run by syndicates of Basotho musicians. They are fighting over these territories as well.</p>
<p>And indeed, when you listen to the music, I mean, it’s beautiful, it’s healing, with wonderful poetry, but it engenders a lot of death. You know, which is a contradiction in terms. I think that’s what fascinated me to write a novel set in this community of famo music, examining the culture that gave birth to it, the culture of the old <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/200611080910.html">MaRussia gangs</a>, the Russian gangs of the 50s. And then up to the contemporary musicians, because you see, you trace the ancestry of the current famo musicians to those early MaRussia gangs.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/virtual-exhibition-breathes-life-into-lesothos-musical-tradition-and-clay-art-167315">Virtual exhibition breathes life into Lesotho's musical tradition and clay art</a>
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<p><strong>Nokuthula Mazibuko-Msimang:</strong> Scholars of African literature will know about the history of the MaRussia. And I grew up in <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/place/soweto-johannesburg">Soweto</a>, in Pimville. So MaRussia were really big in Pimville. We all knew even as children, that, you know, when you see a Mosotho with a blanket … It might be an <a href="https://theconversation.com/worlds-deadliest-inventor-mikhail-kalashnikov-and-his-ak-47-126253">AK47</a> under the blanket.</p>
<p><strong>Zakes Mda:</strong> We know <em>difela</em>, the wayfarers hymns, as melodic, it’s so deceptively beautiful and calm, you know, but there is this kind of underbelly. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Pretoria launch of Wayfarers’ Hymns.</span></figcaption>
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<p><strong>Nokuthula Mazibuko-Msimang:</strong> And very elegantly done. The way you balance dramatic and sometimes very difficult issues, to do with race, to do with land, to do with economic freedom, but it’s tempered with humour. But specifically in this book, the issue of the toxic masculinities, the whole persona of the mine worker, you know, <em>o sebetsa dimaineng</em> don’t be a layabout, go and be a man and work in the mines, and the cost of that to the individuals and to the community. Talk to us about that, because in the past, you’ve spoken about strong women, but now you seem to be shining a light more on the many layers of masculinities.</p>
<p><strong>Zakes Mda:</strong> Yes. But even then, I still talk about strong women. But even there, it is not something that is preplanned, that this woman has to be strong, this man has to be toxic, and so on. The story takes me there. And the story is informed by the culture of the setting. The strong women don’t come from my imagination … “Oh, I wish there were strong women in the world, okay, let me create them in my fiction.” It is because in the environment that I’m writing about, they are there. In many instances, they’re the people who drive life in those environments. And therefore, they drive my story. The toxic environment of the men, in the setting of the wayfarers, this is one novel which is much more informed by the reality, than any other of my novels. </p>
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<span class="caption">Zakes Mda.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joanne Olivier/Courtesy Penguin Random House</span></span>
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<p>The story itself is told a lot through the lyrics of their songs, and of their poetry, and those lyrics are full of that toxic masculinity that you are talking about. Because they are lyrics of war, and they challenge one another. And they do in Sesotho what is known as <em>ho kobisa</em> which means, you know, talking obliquely about each other in an insulting way, even without directly mentioning the names. But when you hear the song, you know that song is about me. And I’m going back to kill those people.</p>
<p><strong>Nokuthula Mazibuko-Msimang:</strong> I’ve got a question from one of the people watching: what is the one thing Prof Mda would like to see his books do in African communities? What kind of impact does he hope to achieve?</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/this-award-winning-lesotho-film-also-has-social-justice-at-heart-154204">This award-winning Lesotho film also has social justice at heart</a>
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<p><strong>Zakes Mda:</strong> Well, like every writer in the world, you hope that your books will be read, that’s the main reason you write them. And first and foremost, you want them to entertain, because that’s what the intention is. That’s why it is a novel and not a pamphlet of ideas. It’s a novel because storytelling in itself is entertaining and therefore highly digestible and you transmit knowledge through a medium that gives you joy, just the joy of the stories itself … </p>
<p>But of course, there is no writer in the world who will be loved by everybody. There will be those who will love your work. There will be others who will say it’s so-so, it’s mediocre, but okay. And there are others who say, this is awful. That’s what we live with as artists in all the arts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170839/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nokuthula Mazibuko Msimang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Lesotho’s famo music is known for the use of accordions - and gang violence. In Wayfarers’ Hymns, Zakes Mda explores this tradition.Nokuthula Mazibuko Msimang, Artist in Residency, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1673152021-09-08T14:37:51Z2021-09-08T14:37:51ZVirtual exhibition breathes life into Lesotho’s musical tradition and clay art<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419272/original/file-20210903-17-19jzl98.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=66%2C255%2C1675%2C810&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Clay figurines of musicians, by Samuele Makoanyane</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kirby Collection, University of Cape Town</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The start of the news broadcast on Radio Lesotho is signalled by an unforgettable vibrating <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLbI0OCMKhE">sound</a>, rather harsh, as if made by a large bird. This is the <a href="https://digitalcollections.lib.uct.ac.za/collection/islandora-20165">lesiba</a>, a musical bow. The lesiba was played by boys and men as they herded cattle, before radios and cellphones began to take the place of the national musical instrument. </p>
<p>Nowadays, there is little apparent concern for maintaining interest in the lesiba at school or any other national level in Lesotho. The unique sound of the instrument – once evocative of a rural way of life – seems to exist in a disconnected, disembodied fashion on the radio.</p>
<p>And the people who do still play Lesotho’s traditional instruments – musicians, instrument builders and innovators of their art – are seldom recognised or rewarded for their expertise.</p>
<p>But a collaboration led by the <a href="http://www.sacm.uct.ac.za">South African College of Music</a> at the University of Cape Town, aims to return attention to Lesotho’s musical tradition. The <a href="https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2020-03-31-sylvia-bruinders-music-and-art-in-lesotho">collaboration</a> involves filming musicians and exhibiting related artworks. We recorded musicians playing four instruments that are also depicted in clay figurines made by the late Lesotho artist <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/samuel-makoanyane">Samuele Makoanyane</a> (1909-1944).</p>
<p><a href="https://www.iziko.org.za/">Iziko South African Museum</a>, in collaboration with <a href="https://www.dijondesign.net/">Dijondesign</a> (heritage consultants for the <a href="https://artandaboutafrica.com/artspaces/lesotho/lesotho-national-museum-and-art-gallery/">Lesotho National Museum and Art Gallery</a>), have created a <a href="https://virtual.iziko.org.za/samuele-makoanyane.html">virtual exhibition</a> of the delicate figurines. </p>
<p>They used photogrammetry – recording, measuring, and mapping – to make 3D digital models of the sculptures. These digital models are between 8cm and 18cm in height. They allow for detailed and interactive exploration. The figurines are being exhibited through Iziko South African Museum. The new Lesotho National Museum and Art Gallery will also show them at its official opening in 2022.</p>
<p>We also worked with the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/morijamuseum/">Morija Museum and Archive</a>, the Morija Art Centre and the Lesotho National Museum and Art Gallery to create a <a href="https://vimeo.com/419949659">film</a>. Called <em>Music in the Mountain Kingdom</em>, it documents Lesotho musical culture and accompanies the exhibition of figurines. Before the pandemic lockdown, we had also planned to include live performances by the musicians at the exhibitions. </p>
<h2>Makoanyane figurines</h2>
<p>The seven exquisite, little-known clay figurines in the exhibition were made by Makoanyane in the 1930s. They were commissioned by musicologist Professor <a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/musical-instruments-of-the-native-people-of-south-africa/">Percival Kirby</a> of the University of the Witwatersrand, in order to document Lesotho musicians and their instruments. Made in the age-old tradition of low temperature pit firing, they are extremely fragile. They are being cared for in the <a href="http://www.sacm.uct.ac.za/sacm/kirbycollection">Kirby Collection of Musical Instruments</a> at the South African College of Music. </p>
<p>Makoanyane lived mostly in Koalabata, in the Teyateyaneng District. This is about 89km north of Lesotho’s capital, Maseru. To make the figurines, he worked from pictures in Kirby’s 1934 <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/60594">tome</a>, <em>The Musical Instruments of the Native Races of South Africa</em>.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419253/original/file-20210903-17-1jnmmbp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Clay figurine of seated woman with a drum" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419253/original/file-20210903-17-1jnmmbp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419253/original/file-20210903-17-1jnmmbp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419253/original/file-20210903-17-1jnmmbp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419253/original/file-20210903-17-1jnmmbp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419253/original/file-20210903-17-1jnmmbp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419253/original/file-20210903-17-1jnmmbp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419253/original/file-20210903-17-1jnmmbp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Clay figurine by Samuele Makoanyane of a woman playing moropa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kirby Collection, University of Cape Town</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The figurines are recorded in the University of Cape Town’s <a href="https://www.digitalcollections.lib.uct.ac.za/islandora/search/Samuel%20Makoanyane%20figurines?type=dismax">Humanities Digital Collection</a>. They are named as: thomo musical bow, setolotolo musical bow, seketari (guitar), lesiba musical bow, lekolilo pipe, moropa drum and pipe. </p>
<p>The Morija Museum and Archive, Lesotho’s oldest and best known museum, also has 33 Makoanyane clay figurines in its collection. The museum helped to find living musicians to perform on four of the instruments depicted.</p>
<h2>The musicians</h2>
<p>We recorded five musicians for the virtual exhibition. An older woman, Matlali Kheoana, plays the lekope (unbraced mouth-resonated musical bow) and the sekebeku (jaws harp). Sekebeku is technically not part of the collection, but a modern manufactured instrument similar to the setolotolo in the collection.</p>
<p>Leabua Mokhele, an older man, and Molahlehi Matima, a younger man, both play the lesiba (unbraced mouth-resonated musical bow). Malefetsane Paul Mabotsane and Petar Mohai, two younger men, play the segankhulu (single-stringed bowed lute with an oil can resonator). </p>
<p>Although two instruments were doubled, the performers played very differently. In the case of the segankhulu, they even constructed their instruments differently. The lesiba and segankhulu seem to still attract younger, innovative players. But the lekope is particularly at risk and Matlali Kheoana is in all likelihood one of the last few performers of this instrument.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Music in the Mountain Kingdom, directed by photographer Paul Weinberg.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Live performances at the exhibition would have provided the musicians with exposure and possible earnings from their expertise. Other outcomes could have included workshops and demonstrations at universities or through museum programmes. </p>
<p>We are still working on creating learning and teaching materials for the study of Lesotho music. We hope that the repatriation of the music and musical instruments through the exhibition and film will revitalise Basotho interest and the pursuit of a sustainable indigenous music culture.</p>
<p><em>The project wishes to acknowledge Steven Sack (independent curator), Jon Weinberg (Dijondesign lead exhibitory consultant) and Stephen Wessels (Dijondesign photogrammetry specialist) for the virtual installation.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167315/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sylvia Bruinders works for the University of Cape Town receives funding from the National Research Foundation and the A.W. Mellon Foundation. </span></em></p>Clay figurines of musicians, made in the 1930s, are being exhibited along with a new film of actual musicians playing the traditional instruments.Sylvia Bruinders, Associate Professor of Musicology, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1647022021-07-20T14:42:42Z2021-07-20T14:42:42ZThe spirit, life and art of Tsepo Tshola, pastor of South African pop<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411835/original/file-20210719-15-sru9ci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tsepo Tshola during the memorial service of Hugh Masekela in 2018.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Frennie Shivambu/Gallo Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>I grieve to start this way. No sooner had I struggled to find some means to say my goodbyes to <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-magnificent-mabi-thobejane-master-south-african-drummer-162231">Mabi Thobejane</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/steve-kekana-an-80s-south-african-pop-star-and-much-more-164141">Steve Kekana</a>, than South African music lost singer and composer <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-village-pope-has-passed-remembering-tsepo-tshola-lesothos-musical-giant-164650">Tsepo Tshola</a>. </p>
<p>These three masters of the nation’s musical soul were famous, but not celebrities. Because they never acted like that. Complex personalities and talents, they all possessed that son-of-the-soil joviality that made them ever accessible and “simple” in the reverent way South Africans use that adjective. </p>
<p>I remember, in 1978, during one of my many research tours in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Lesotho">Lesotho</a>, a mountainous kingdom encircled by South Africa, I was hanging with the brilliant guitarist and composer <a href="https://sisgwenjazz.wordpress.com/2018/07/10/frank-leepa-biography-brutal-history-personal-beefs-and-brilliant-music/">Frank Leepa</a>, drummers Moss Nkofo and the one and only Black Jesus (passing around the herb), and Tsepo, in a ramshackle old storefront across from Maseru Market.</p>
<p>They were Uhuru Band back then, and flushed with the success of their first hit song, simply entitled <em>Africa</em>. The song merely praises and celebrates the mother continent, yet so repressive was South Africa’s <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a> regime that the band was banned from performing there. Their manager, Peter Schneider, pondered what to do. Shuffle the personnel a bit and change their name, I shrugged. And so eventually did they re-emerge as <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/magazine/ode-sankomota">Sankomota</a> – Lesotho’s most famous Afro-fusion pop ensemble. </p>
<p>Tsepo would go on to bridge Lesotho and South Africa in a time of political tumult. What drove his life and his music would be his fierce sense of belonging to both nations as one.</p>
<h2>The life</h2>
<p>He was born in 1953 in the Berea district of western Lesotho, in the “one-street” but scenic town of Teyateyaneng or TY. Tsepo, however, had other inspirations for his musical vocation than the late-night dances at TY’s famous Blue Mountain Inn. </p>
<p>His father Mokoteli was a pastor with the African Methodist Episcopal <a href="https://www.ame-church.com/our-church/our-history/">Church</a>, and both the Reverend Tshola and his wife MaLimpho were stalwarts of the double vocal quartet the Vertical 8. Tsepo always emphasised this church as his musical alma mater, with its liturgical roots in African-American hymnody (the singing or composition of hymns). </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411925/original/file-20210719-19-15tncr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="On a live music stage, a balding man in a tunic with cloth over his shoulder holds a walking stick. He is bathed in blue and silver stage light." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411925/original/file-20210719-19-15tncr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411925/original/file-20210719-19-15tncr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=898&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411925/original/file-20210719-19-15tncr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=898&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411925/original/file-20210719-19-15tncr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=898&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411925/original/file-20210719-19-15tncr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1129&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411925/original/file-20210719-19-15tncr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1129&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411925/original/file-20210719-19-15tncr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1129&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Tsepo Tshola performs at a jazz festival in South Africa, 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vathiswa Ruselo/Sowetan/Gallo Images</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>By 1970 he had already joined Leepa, and they would form Uhuru in 1975. In the late 1970s, now as <a href="https://shifty.co.za/records/sankomota/">Sankomota</a>, they were the house band at Maseru’s Victoria Hotel, entertaining luminaries such as <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/miriam-makeba">Miriam Makeba</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/remembering-hugh-masekela-the-horn-player-with-a-shrewd-ear-for-music-of-the-day-86414">Hugh Masekela</a>, exiled from South Africa by their politics.</p>
<p>1983 was their breakout year, with South African producer Lloyd Ross of <a href="https://shifty.co.za/records/shifty-story/">Shifty Records</a> recording their first album, <a href="https://shifty.co.za/records/sankomota/"><em>Sankomota</em></a>, and the release of Leepa’s hit composition <a href="https://www.discogs.com/Hugh-Masekela-Pula-Ea-Na/release/2420893"><em>It’s Raining</em></a>. With Masekela, Tsepo toured southern Africa and ventured to London, where the rest of Sankomota joined him in 1985. </p>
<p>Returning from London as Nelson Mandela’s release from prison and the end of white minority rule approached, Tsepo then joined Masekela for his epochal homecoming <em>Sekunjalo</em> tour of South Africa in 1991. Masekela was stunned by the massive adulation with which he was greeted by audiences (including me) that he feared had forgotten him. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-village-pope-has-passed-remembering-tsepo-tshola-lesothos-musical-giant-164650">The Village Pope has passed: remembering Tsepo Tshola, Lesotho's musical giant</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>Tsepo seized the opportunity to begin what would be his legendary solo career, one that would last until his heartrending departure on 15 July 2021. Collaborating and leading the vocals for countless top artists and ensembles, his gravelly “Louis Armstrong” baritone would drive gospel, traditional and pop songs in Sesotho and under the name The Village Pope.</p>
<h2>The spirit</h2>
<p>The intertwining of inner spirit, life and art in Tsepo Tshola’s odyssey cannot be overemphasised. Let me illustrate this through the songs. </p>
<p>Tsepo was astonishingly prolific, and he continued composing, recording and performing almost until his death. Of this monumental catalogue, however, a few are sure to be played as long as the turbulent, ebullient decades leading up to and following the turn of the 21st century are remembered. These include one of the earlier works, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4s4jbA3TUgQ"><em>Papa</em></a>, from Sankomota’s album <a href="https://www.discogs.com/Sankomota-The-Writing-On-The-Wall/release/4311445"><em>Writing on the Wall</em></a> (1989). </p>
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<p>Religious in tone, as ultimately with all of Tsepo’s music, the song includes a solo verse as much intoned in prayer as sung in his raspy voice:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You’re waiting for your name to be called (What do you say?) Your body is shaking with disbelief (Tell us more)…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In 1994, a newly democratic South Africa witnessed the release of Tsepo’s signature album, <a href="https://www.discogs.com/Tsepo-Tshola-The-Village-Pope/release/10838218"><em>The Village Pope</em></a>, the one that forever gave him his name as iconic pastor of South African pop. </p>
<p>Most of the tributes that have poured forth in print and on social media have included this jaunty, iconoclastic alias. Yet it is not at all an attempt at self-congratulation or promotion, nor a reference to his sometimes harshly paternalistic admonition of his musicians in rehearsal and recording. It is rather an honorific proclaiming his unwavering commitment to kith and kin; his home in Lesotho, his close friends and family, his bi-national identity. </p>
<h2>Upliftment</h2>
<p>Avoiding the trappings of fame and shallow, transactional relationships, Tsepo was a devoted husband who never got over the passing of his wife in 1984. He never remarried, but remained, as many a Mosotho patriarch will sigh, “everyone’s father”. He was back in Teyateyaneng for a family funeral when he fell ill with COVID-19 and passed away.</p>
<p>Other songs of special significance include <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoN1rudM-2s"><em>Holokile</em></a> (All Right) from 1994, based in hymnody and virtually a hymn in itself. Indeed, Tsepo’s style has often been labelled “traditional gospel” but this is definitely the wrong music store bin. </p>
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<p>Tsepo’s style comes from a blending of the Afro-pop fusion of “black consciousness” groups such as <a href="http://www.music.org.za/artist.asp?id=170">Sakhile</a>, <a href="https://www.newframe.com/stimela-the-train-and-south-africas-musical-heritage/">Stimela</a>, and of course Frank Leepa’s Sankomota in the 1980s, and his own hymnodic upbringing. That is why his songs are more inspirational than celebratory, and more “step and sway” than danceable. They are ballads to uplift an African nation. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3ykfbkFuv4"><em>Stop the War</em></a>, from 1995, is not a religious tune at all, but an upbeat, pop injunction to South Africans not to fight one another over the spoils of the victory over apartheid. During the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-have-south-africans-been-on-a-looting-rampage-research-offers-insights-164571">looting and insurrection</a> that was taking place on the very day of his death, <em>Stop the War</em> was the song heard on radio stations nationwide. </p>
<p>Finally, there is his rollicking, township-jiviest song (no gospel here), <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyEtgQoxxzc"><em>Akubutle</em></a> (Don’t Ask), from 2003, the one that never fails to bring listeners to their feet at a restaurant, club or party. </p>
<p>BT, as Bra Tsepo was popularly known, we can’t blame you for leaving us, but how are we going to get through all this without you? Akubutle.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164702/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Coplan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Schooled in music through church, he was driven by a fierce sense of belonging to Lesotho where he was born, and neighbouring South Africa.David Coplan, Professor Emeritus, Social Anthropology, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1646502021-07-16T15:01:20Z2021-07-16T15:01:20ZThe Village Pope has passed: remembering Tsepo Tshola, Lesotho’s musical giant<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411672/original/file-20210716-21-12rsg9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tsepo Tshola performs at A Night With Legends Live in Johannesburg in 2020.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Screengrab/Slice Events</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“It’s the love of what I’m doing that’s kept me in the business,” <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj4DMqgl2Wo">declared</a> singer and composer Tsepo Tshola, who <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2021-07-15-village-pope-tsepo-tshola-dies-of-covid-19-complications/">passed away</a> in Lesotho on July 15, aged 68. </p>
<p>Tshola had been in showbiz for over half a century: a career that stretched from Sesotho roots and popular music in the 1970s, through international tours and collaborations, to his most recent identity as an inspiring gospel singer, and the co-founder of independent music label Killer Joe.</p>
<p>What characterised his work was a passionate desire to tell it as he saw it, whether that was about the evils of racism in the early days of his career, or the dangers of addiction and, more recently, the need for self-reliance.</p>
<p>His righteous preaching earned him the soubriquet of The Village Pope, but was also a family legacy. </p>
<h2>The young artist</h2>
<p>Tshola was born on 15 August 1953 in Teyateyaneng in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Lesotho">Lesotho</a>, a small, mountainous and landlocked country surrounded by its larger neighbour, South Africa. His father was a preacher and church organiser and his mother a chorister. He first honed his rich baritone in a church choir.</p>
<p>As a teenager, he joined the pop band Lesotho Blue Diamonds. Later, he hooked up with Anti-Antiques, formed by guitarist “Captain” <a href="https://sisgwenjazz.wordpress.com/2018/07/10/frank-leepa-biography-brutal-history-personal-beefs-and-brilliant-music/">Frank Leepa</a>. The two first got talking in the streets, he <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bReTH8l3IKE">recalled</a>: “It was God’s doing. I was looking for a match – so one of us had a match and the other had a cigarette: ‘Sure, man, let’s share.’” </p>
<p>They also shared opinions about music, and although Anti-Antiques already had a vocalist – and was definitely not earning enough to support two – Leepa’s dream of forming a super-group, and Tshola’s striking voice, ensured his membership.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411663/original/file-20210716-27-1ssx7ya.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man on a striped couch in a beige suit, smiling." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411663/original/file-20210716-27-1ssx7ya.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411663/original/file-20210716-27-1ssx7ya.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411663/original/file-20210716-27-1ssx7ya.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411663/original/file-20210716-27-1ssx7ya.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411663/original/file-20210716-27-1ssx7ya.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411663/original/file-20210716-27-1ssx7ya.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411663/original/file-20210716-27-1ssx7ya.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Detail from the album cover for Nothing Can Beat the Truth (2010)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">CCP Records/EMI</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Tshola goes on:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I remember the first time I heard my voice on the radio. I was walking the streets and it was playing from a radio in a shop. I jumped for joy – and jumped straight into some water. I spent the time after that looking for cardboard to put into my shoes, because they had no soles.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In that insecure, erratic environment of the nascent Lesotho modern music scene, Anti-Antiques morphed into a second incarnation of Leepa’s band Uhuru. A small but relatively successful 1979 tour of South Africa crashed and burned when “we were banned for singing <em>Africa Shall Unite</em>”. South Africa’s <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a> rulers did not tolerate the song’s Pan African liberation politics. Leepa’s fourth band, <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/magazine/ode-sankomota">Sankomota</a>, was founded in the mid-1970s.</p>
<h2>Sankomoto</h2>
<p>Tshola sang with that incarnation of Sankomota for some time in Lesotho, but by the mid-1980s he was working more widely too. He eventually accepted an invitation from jazz trumpeter <a href="https://theconversation.com/remembering-hugh-masekela-the-horn-player-with-a-shrewd-ear-for-music-of-the-day-86414">Hugh Masekela</a> to record the albums <em>Techno-Bush</em> and <em>Waiting for the Rain in Botswana</em>. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Sankomota had recorded their widely acclaimed self-titled <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2018-11-23-00-sankomota-ode-explores-a-cultural-treasure/https://mg.co.za/article/2018-11-23-00-sankomota-ode-explores-a-cultural-treasure/">debut album</a> in Lesotho in 1983, with an international release the following year. The music combined <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sotho">Sesotho</a> musical roots with sharply contemporary musicianship and a stirring liberation message. </p>
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<p>When Tshola, by then in London, heard the cassette, he immediately rushed to persuade a London colleague, musician <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/julian-sebothane-bahula">Julian Bahula</a>, to help organise work for the band. After huge difficulties raising funds and arranging a route that didn’t pass through South Africa, where they were still banned, Sankomota made it to London. It became their base between 1985 and 1989.</p>
<p>Bahula organised a number of concerts and tours, many of them under the aegis of South Africa’s liberation movement, the African National Congress. “We were touring Europe and literally getting paid with bread and salami,” Tshola <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bReTH8l3IKE">recalled</a>. “There is no way you can keep quiet when you feel the pain. We were driven by pain.” And, despite the hardships: “That contribution still makes me happy today.”</p>
<p>Tshola’s voice sounds out sweet and clear on Sankomota’s second album <em>Dreams Do Come True</em> (1987) and their third, <em>The Writing’s On The Wall</em> (1989).</p>
<p>He also continued to tour with others including Masekela and, like the trumpeter, went through reckless times shadowed by drug addiction. And like Masekela, he took that experience forward <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2021/07/15/god-music-and-overcoming-drugs-how-tsepo-tshola-built-a-solid-50-year-career">positively</a>, later counselling other musicians battling addiction.</p>
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<h2>The Village Pope</h2>
<p>Tshola had been composing since the mid-1980s. As change came and South Africa transitioned to democracy, he found plentiful work there: appearing, for example, on the 1983 Africa Against Aids project and the ANC’s 1994 elections album <em>Sekunjalo</em>.</p>
<p>Tshola’s own album as leader, <em>The Village Pope</em>, was released in 1993; a second album, <em>Lesedi</em>, appeared in 2001 and a third, <em>New Dawn</em>, in 2003. He worked with the late Zimbabwean singer Oliver Mtukudzi, with South African vocalists Brenda Fassie and PJ Powers and, later, with dance music producer Cassper Nyovest, with vocal star Thandiswa Mazwai and, as his interest in returning to his gospel roots grew stronger, with gospel star Rebecca Malope.</p>
<p>By the 20-teens, much of his time was being occupied by his label Killer Joe, co-founded with musician Joe Nina and lawyer Stanley Letsela. That too was a response to earlier bitter experiences. “I never found managers,” he <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj4DMqgl2Wo">said</a> in 2019, “they were just looters … Today, I manage myself.”</p>
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<p>Tshola also returned to his roots in other ways. He established a home in Johannesburg and another in Lesotho, where his adult sons, Kamogelo and Katlego, both singers, stayed. There, he collaborated with the Conservation Africa music project to archive Lesotho’s music legacy and mentor young musicians.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/remembering-hugh-masekela-the-horn-player-with-a-shrewd-ear-for-music-of-the-day-86414">Remembering Hugh Masekela: the horn player with a shrewd ear for music of the day</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>As news of Tshola’s death emerged, South Africa was staring bleakly at the results of nearly a week of unrest and disorder. Those mourning his death invoked his song <em>Stop the War</em>, as a message worth remembering.</p>
<p>But Tshola the social commentator had other words too. Asked by the South African Broadcasting Corporation on Freedom Day 2017 what freedom meant to him, he warned that living free was not a simple, self-evident thing: “Freedom needs discipline and focus. Unless you learn freedom, freedom will destroy you.” </p>
<p><em>Robala ka khotso</em> (rest in peace) to a truly golden voice and a very sharp thinker indeed.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Listen to a Tsepo Tshola playlist at the author’s blog over <a href="https://sisgwenjazz.wordpress.com/2021/07/16/rip-tshepo-tshola-1953-2021/">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164650/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gwen Ansell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For over 50 years Tshola was loved by audiences around the world for his rich baritone voice, which he used to inspire and to speak political truths.Gwen Ansell, Associate of the Gordon Institute for Business Science, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1542042021-02-03T14:39:44Z2021-02-03T14:39:44ZThis award-winning Lesotho film also has social justice at heart<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381107/original/file-20210128-21-10pm8mp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mary Twala Mhlongo is the star of This Is Not a Burial, It's a Resurrection.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Screengrab/Courtesy Urucu Media</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since its <a href="https://www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/2019/biennale-college-cinema/not-burial-it%E2%80%99s-resurrection">premiere</a> at the 2019 Venice International Film Festival, the feature <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10849514/"><em>This is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection</em></a> has been touring the world’s film festivals. </p>
<p>Everywhere it goes it attracts <a href="https://www.newframe.com/film-review-this-is-not-a-burial-its-a-resurrection/">critical</a> <a href="https://variety.com/2020/film/reviews/this-is-not-a-burial-its-a-resurrection-film-review-1203495199/">praise</a> and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10849514/awards">awards</a> – over 25 of them now. At the Sundance Film Festival it won a special jury <a href="https://www.newframe.com/film-review-this-is-not-a-burial-its-a-resurrection/">award</a> for “visionary filmmaking” for its director, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6011478/">Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese</a>. It is the first Lesotho film ever to have been <a href="https://www.okayafrica.com/updated-this-is-not-a-burial-its-a-resurrection-oscar-nomination-/">included</a> in the foreign language category or “best foreign film” category of the Academy Awards. </p>
<p>Here’s the film’s <a href="https://www.urucumedia.com/burial">official summary</a>: when her village in rural Lesotho is threatened with forced resettlement because of a reservoir development, 80-year-old widow Mantoa (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/nov/25/beyonce-oscars-mary-twala-black-is-king-this-is-not-a-burial-its-a-resurrection">Mary Twala Mhlongo</a>) finds a new will to live and ignites the spirit of resilience within her community.</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The film is acclaimed as a slow-moving visual feast with charged performances and resonant themes.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The film’s producer, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm7333477/">Cait Pansegrouw</a> from <a href="https://www.urucumedia.com">Urucu Media</a>, met director Mosese in the Realness Screenwriting Residency <a href="https://www.realness.institute/realness-residency">programme</a>, which she helps organise. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2020/conversations-with-filmmakers-across-the-globe/lemohang-jeremiah-mosese/">Mosese</a> is a self-taught filmmaker who fell in love with cinema while watching 16mm films in a town hall in Maseru. He attracted attention with his much-talked-about 2019 <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10265444/">feature</a> <em>Mother, I Am Suffocating. This Is My Last Film About You.</em> Though born and raised in Lesotho, he mostly resides in Berlin. </p>
<p>Pansegrouw is herself no stranger to controversial films that tackle taboo subjects head on. The most well-known of these might be <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-returns-to-apartheid-era-censorship-with-the-banning-of-inxeba-92850"><em>Inxeba</em></a> (<em>The Wound</em>, 2017) which she co-produced. Anna-Marie Jansen van Vuuren interviewed her.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>What makes the film so special?</strong></p>
<p>The film is very close to my heart. But its the director, Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, is the “tour de force” behind its success – and the reason why it pulls at the heartstrings of viewers from all over the world. </p>
<p><strong>I believe the film’s narrative is a personal one for him. Could you elaborate on this?</strong></p>
<p>Firstly, it is inspired by his grandmother who lives in a village that is right now on the verge of being forcibly resettled. But as a child Lemohang and his family were evicted from their home to make way for water infrastructure in Lesotho. Since then, Lemohang is someone who has never really felt part of society, he has always felt like an outsider. And now even more so as a Masotho man living in Europe. And then when he returns to Lesotho, he is still considered to be an outsider, because of his German residency. Thus, he is really interested in one’s relationship with one’s homeland and what it means.</p>
<p><strong>Another theme of the film is life and death. The main character, Mantoa, is preparing for her death by arranging her funeral and saying farewell to those around her…?</strong> </p>
<p>Lemohang calls this “the brutal march of time”. By that he means that nature can be cruel in its treatment of mere mortals. Tied to that, he is also fascinated by how modernity is clashing more and more with tradition – and what that means, particularly for rural communities that do not know any other way of existing. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381106/original/file-20210128-17-1gm3bb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A glitzy room full of people, a man and a woman heading to stage, he in a hat and jacket, she in a full skirt and clutching her mouth in surprise." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381106/original/file-20210128-17-1gm3bb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381106/original/file-20210128-17-1gm3bb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381106/original/file-20210128-17-1gm3bb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381106/original/file-20210128-17-1gm3bb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381106/original/file-20210128-17-1gm3bb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381106/original/file-20210128-17-1gm3bb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381106/original/file-20210128-17-1gm3bb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese (left from) and Cait Pansegrouw head to stage to accept an award at the Sundance Film Festival.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Urucu Media</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>The film critiques development authorities who are expanding Lesotho’s dams and water infrastructure. Do you hope that this film will play a role in creating awareness about the <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/02/lesotho-polihali-dam-construction-puts-nearly-8000-people-at-risk-of-displacement/">social injustice</a> taking place in Lesotho?</strong></p>
<p>Most of South Africa’s water actually <a href="https://www.water-technology.net/projects/lesotho-highlands/">comes from</a> Lesotho. Annually Lesotho exports an estimated 780 million cubic meters of water to South Africa. It is recognised as Africa’s largest water transfer scheme in history. A lot of communities in Lesotho suffer immensely because their water is being sent away. They have a water shortage, although their environment is actually a water source. </p>
<p>Therefore, a lot of work is currently being done with rural communities because they don’t have the tools to take on the government about this. They are not aware of their rights or the instruments that are in place for them to fight for a more just relationship between South Africa and Lesotho. </p>
<p><strong>Is this what drew you to the film?</strong></p>
<p>We didn’t make this film with an agenda for it to be some kind of exposé or political statement about the water scenario. But I am hopeful that the film will open audiences’ eyes to this multifaceted, complex issue. It’s not just about the water shortage or about people being resettled. When they are uprooted, it affects people’s ability to live sustainable, meaningful lives. Families are often torn apart and individuals’ sense of identity is forever rocked by an experience like this. And what we also deal with in the film is the fact that people’s ancestral graves are destroyed in the process of land being flooded in order to create more dams and reservoirs.</p>
<p><em>This is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection is scheduled for a run in South African cinemas in June 2021.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154204/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna-Marie Jansen van Vuuren is affiliated with the Film Programme at the Faculty of Arts and Design, Tshwane University of Technology. She is a full member of the Writers' Guild of South Africa (WGSA)</span></em></p>Lesotho’s first-ever entry at the Oscars is a powerful story based on true-to-life events in which a village is to be forcibly evicted to make way for a new dam.Anna-Marie Jansen van Vuuren, Lecturer, Tshwane University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.