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Botswana: M7 Unleashes New Kwaito Tunes
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Mmegi/The Reporter (Gaborone)
14 January 2008
Posted to the web 14 January 2008
By Mogomotsi Moloi
Francistown
Growing up in the then squatter camp of Coloured before relocating to a ghetto area of Block Seven in the late 80s had a huge influence on Karabo Moremi's life.
He dresses, walks and speaks like an obsessed ghetto lad. Though he has been working behind the scenes in the music industry, Moremi, otherwise known as Mseven, shot to fame late last year after releasing a balanced eight-track kwaito album. The album, dubbed Sdlalimadice, is undoubtedly a confession of a ghetto boy and is dominated by tsotsital.
Like it is a tradition for kwaito artistes to sing in a hoarse voice, Moremi sounds like a seasoned musician. The passionate young artiste attributes this to the fact he is a true ghetto boy who is talented in singing kwaito music. He concedes that it was not easy to produce the album but through hard work and perseverance, he managed.
"I have been a kwaito enthusiast since my childhood. I started this while I was still at junior school at Gold Mine," explains Moremi. He says after he failed Form Three, he focused his life on music but he faced some daunting challenges. Before last year, he had three musical projects that he dumped because he had no funds and he was let down by his crew.
It was only last year that he found it fit to go solo and he won, thanks to his manager Archi Maraire who financed the project. It has been a long struggle to success for Moremi but now he is buzzing with happiness to be counted among musicians.
"My first three albums could not be released because I did not have money. Again, the people I worked with were reluctant and they did not love music, which made us fail," he regrets. He, however, reckons that his new album has what it takes to take the nation by storm. The 22-year-old believes that he has done his assignment in the product and looks to the future with high expectations.
Moremi disputes suggestions that his music is a carbon copy of self-proclaimed house-kwasa sensation Odirile 'Vee' Sento, Eskimos and, perhaps, Exodus. "The music might be the same but lyrics are different," he justifies, adding that Vee sings a different genre.
He says that kwaito songs sound similar because of the Zulu vocabulary that dominates the genre. Even though this is his first viable project, the kwaito star indicates that he is not only into kwaito but other genres as well. However, kwaito is in his blood because of his origins.
"It is not that I know kwaito only. I do what is music. I grew up ekasi," says the young artiste. His dream this year is to turn into a kwaito musician of great repute. He believes that through aggressive marketing and promotion, his future in the music industry looks bright.
During the festive season, Mseven, accompanied by other upcoming groups from the newly established Skilz Production, embarked on a massive promotion of their music in the north. They performed at places like Sebina and Mokubilo. "Our music was well accepted by reveallers there. Even today more people are calling for my CD," said Moremi, who is impressed that his tracks are played on Radio Botswana day and night.
He is impressive on stage and he keeps his audience live. He says he is also a good kwaito dancer. He says that it is his first appearance on the music scene and people should expect more. "This is just an introduction of myself in the music industry. My next album would be far much better than this one because I have learnt much." He says he learnt the tricks of the industry and hopefully he would rectify his previous mistakes. He would strive for perfection in future and will compose his lyrics to stand out.
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Moremi is hoping to shoot a DVD soon to complement his day-to-day promotions in marketing his album.
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| Copyright © 2008 Mmegi/The Reporter. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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