It should not surprise that it is the traditional dance troupes that have been making headway on the international scene.

Dikakapa now represents the traditional arts constituency of Botswana at the Kora awards. Machesa and Culture Spears also get regular play on the South African radio stations. Stiger and Stiger's Sister have won competitions in Pretoria in South Africa. Maxy, when she appeared to be focused on interpretations of folk music made her way to Japan and South Africa where she seems to have been coaxed into transforming herself into a little Brenda Fassie.

Ndingo Johwa has featured on Steve Dyer's Mahube project and he should be getting much more work abroad. Oaitse, people can be silly. Why do I keep hearing: "He tires us with this Kalanga stuff". Is that not who the man is? The people don't get tired of the English - much of it nonsense - on the radio and television, but they get tired of Sekalaka, instead of learning the language!

Now let us get this thing straight. There is no music which is not cultural. All music tells a story that will in one way or the other relate the way in which people create food for themselves and the way in which they determine who eats and who does not. One aspect is economy, the other is politics. And then there is the social activity that accompanies the activities and when all these things are bundled together they are called culture.

Wise men have discovered over the years that society tends to be divided between those who have and those who don't have, the rich and the poor and the powerful and the meek. All that is related to who owns vital resources such as land and factories whilst the others own nothing except the hands to work for those who own these resources.

Generally speaking, the music then, will reflect the manner in which the 'haves' celebrate their wealth and the good life. On the other end, there will be the music in which the 'have-nots' bemoan their state of desperation and hopelessness, all the time struggling to keep a sense of pride and happiness despite the hunger, lack of education, sickness, homelessness and lack of money. So culture then relates to the way in which those who have interact with those who do not have in the society.

Mistakenly, some people refer to old songs and ways of dressing and dancing as the 'culture'. They have a good reason. For a very long time visitors to Botswana and the African continent stopped people from singing their songs, speaking their language, worshipping their Gods and holding their festivals.

So they say 'culture' to mean those things that they were prevented from doing by the rude visitors who forced them to mimic their own cultures. When the rich and the poor in the society are conquered by the visitors, they tend to agree on a collective culture; 'our' culture.

That agreement disappears soon after the visitors are forced to leave. The new rich now celebrate their newly rediscovered welt in the cocktail bars and social clubs that were left behind by the visitors and they ban the places where the 'common' people braai meat, drink beer and sing to get relief from their perpetual suffering, first under the visitors and now under their own chiefs, army generals and businessmen.

In past articles I have referred to the folk and traditional music, basically to mean the music of the marginalised - the common people - who are a much bigger part of the population than the people of means. When the artists and the society care about this music, and it documents it in its own technology and schools that grow men and women, it becomes the 'classical' music of the people.

So, classical music is not a monopoly of the Europeans. The Chinese have theirs as do the Brazilians and the Red Indians and the Maoris. And, by the way they also have their folk and traditional music, from where they developed the classical music. They were lucky because we did not make them slaves or our own colonies. If anything they did it to themselves.

Yes I do claim Mbaqanga too, because it is a reflection of the 'Setswana-Sotho' folk and traditional music under modern conditions of industrialisation. The Batswana - never mind the border that was put there by the British and the Afrikaners - were just as many as the Zulus or any other ethnicity at Kimberly and Johannesburg where they found the gold and the diamonds.

And for every Zulu that you name as a Mbaqanga artist I will name a Motswana, just for the record, starting with the much venerated Kippie Moeketsi of Mafikeng. Essentially, these are arguments of the past because we are now creating a culture of southern Africa, maybe even Africa, in which the colonial borders will play an increasing insignificant role.

I do not have to go to Johannesburg, Durban or Cape Town to find inspiration for the future of Botswana music of the 21st Century. I will go there for instruments and schools because they do not exist in Botswana.

The stuff is right there in Jackalas 1, Gantsi, Ramotswa, Mochudi, Mmashoro, Tlokweng, Thamaga and Ratholo.That is why Dikakapa are winners, even if they do not bring back first prize. Musicians should consider raising funds for GU when they travel to Mauritius.