Music in Botswana

Since arriving in Botswana, I have looked forward to experiencing some of the local music. I am a musician and have spent many years studying and playing music from different parts of the world and given the substantial music traditions of Zimbabwe and South Africa, I assumed that Botswana would have a great music tradition as well.

When we arrived, we soon found out that the popular music here is American R&B, hip hop and rap. Not a good sign. But if you wake early enough and walk to the hospital you will hear a choir of nurses and hospital staff, their beautiful voices singing morning hymns in Setswana and any walk through the main mall or the BBS mall in Broadhurst will tell you that there is other music...a more indigenous music with happy chord progressions and whistles. I wanted to find that music.

I asked around at some CD stores and got a couple of names: Shumba, who had just released a new album and Maxy, a woman who apparently sang more traditional songs. I peered over the shoulders of my fellow combi riders to read the writing on a cassette as the combi driver popped it into the cassette player with the resulting cheerful music blasting from the booming combi sound system: Matsieng.

One day, our friend JC texted (it costs a lot to actually phone people, so most of our phone “conversations” with friends consist of SMS text messages, which are relatively cheap) us to see if we wanted to go to a traditional music and dance event at Botswana craft. Botswana craft is an arts store that sells all sorts of beautiful crafts, pottery and artworks made by local Batswana. It’s a little bit higher priced than buying directly from the artists, but it’s more or less one stop shopping, conveniently located on your way to the airport. They also have a stage and open outdoor performance area, and thus many music groups have CD release parties there.

Of course, I was going to go. Rim (giving the Japanese tourist salute. She's Korean. Inside joke there...), Michelle, Shanthi, JC (with the long arms, taking the photo) and I all went. Note the fellow in the background drinking chibuku, a local drink made of fermented sorghum, out of a gourd. The line-up included Maxy, Shumba and Matsieng, and a couple other groups whose names I did not catch. Again…one stop shopping. It turned out that the event was put on specifically for foreign diplomatic missions (JC is a marine that was stationed at the US Embassy in Gaborone…he’s now moving on to Cambodia in his next posting) with the aim of expanding exposure to traditional music of Botswana, hopefully leading to the export of the music and culture across the western world.

Sadly, I don’t think this will happen…at least not with the current state of the music performance scene.

The night started out pleasant enough. We sat at tables laid out with two bottles of Amarula (an alcoholic cream drink much like Bailey’s, but with the distinct flavor of the marula fruit, a small yellow tree berry that is native to southern Africa and is a favorite treat of elephants. The marula fruit are harvested by local women and made into this delicious beverage), amarula-logo shot glasses, serviettes (napkins), basically an amarula marketing campaign. But we love amarula, particularly since it supports local women (Rebeca’s fail-proof logic for continuing to imbibe the stuff), so we were thrilled.

The performance started with a backdrop of the typical evening thunderstorm, which was all very scenic until the thunderstorm and accompanying rain hit us. We were standing in line for dinner when the rain came and it put a temporary stop to the proceedings. The roof over the performance seating areas at Botswana craft is made of aesthetic-looking twigs constructed much like a bamboo sushi-rolling mat; fairly quaint but entirely dysfunctional in preventing leaks when the rains come. Thus, we were all forced to huddle under the narrower metal roofs on the fringes of the performance space. The artists, who were in the middle of performing, were gathered under the roof on the stage. Our amarula remained, abandoned, on our table.

Finally the rains stopped, and the performances resumed. We tramped through large ponds and a small river, carefully avoiding the invisible crocodiles, to get closer to the stage and watched the performance. I’m kidding…about the large ponds…there was only one pond and it was only a medium-sized one.

So…the music. Well…there was indeed music. Only thing was…no musicians. The “bands” typically comprised maybe 5-6 men, one of whom was the lead “singer” (the other were dancers and whistle blowers) and two women who danced and “sang” back-up vocals and harmonies. Note the quotation marks. It was virtually all lip-synched. [Above, Shumba]

Yes, the two women and the lead “singer” had microphones, and the lead “singer” was probably doing some of his singing live, but it was backed by a track of him already singing what he was singing into the mike. The women did do some backing vocals sometimes, but they were likewise just doubling two of the harmony lines coming out of the speakers. The actual music? Pre-recorded, all of it. After completing one song, the group would take a short breather and then start another song. The curious thing was that the music would be nearly identical. The same chord progression: 1 4 5 5; i.e., C major triad arpeggiated staring on g. F major triad. G major triad. G major triad arpeggiated starting on d. It wasn’t just the same tune for one group…every group played different key variations on this theme. It was like there was only one song. Ever. And nobody was playing it. They were just dancing and lip-synching to a multi-tracked synthesize-produced recording of the same cheery 3-chord progression. The interesting bits must have been in the lyrics, which were all in Setswana (or Setswana mixed with Basarwa when Maxy sang) and which we, of course, could not understand. JC later informed us that he found out from a Motswana working at the embassy that one of the songs was about a man asking his girlfriend if she was cheating on him because he wanted to cheat on her and would, I guess, feel justified in doing so if she was already cheating on him.

It all made Nickleback seem like innovative song writers.

[Above, Shumba again]

That was the traditional music. I really felt like a candle had gone out in my heart. Finally Maxy got on stage, a large woman who opened with some real singing. She promised to bring some real performance skills to the stage, but ultimately she was little different from the others. She sang on top of her own pre-recorded voice, cutting out at points and adding little nuances here and there. Nothing impressive. At one point, after singing melismas at the conclusion of a song she stated that “this is the real thing…I know people say we are just lip-synching up here, but I did that to show you this is the real thing”. True…she was singing now and then, but usually only doubling her own voice coming from the recording played on the PA system. Her back-up dancers did not bother to carry microphones to mimic the back-up vocals in the recording. It was a big disappointment.

The best part though was that I got to see all these “traditional” music stars of Botswana all at once, in one event at one venue. Thus, I didn’t waste time and money ever searching for the real thing and being disappointed each time, always thinking that maybe the other groups I heard about would have it.

I’ve heard the real thing exists…it’s out in the villages and much like the performance during the Exodus Live Infinite Word Festival, it involves a larger group that sings, chants and dances to their own accompaniment of hand clapping, foot rattling and vocal trills. I look forward to seeing that again…who knows when I’ll get the chance. But sadly, I don’t feel the need to see Shumba, Matsieng or Maxy again. And I don’t think anyone outside of Africa will ever see groups like this performing at your local venues. Without authentic musicians on stage and slightly more complex chord structures, I believe that this traditional popular music of Botswana will stay in Botswana.

The dancing, however, is interesting and quite charming at times. If only there were musicians playing the original acoustic instruments that must have formed the backbone of this music years ago…*sigh*…

I have a few videos from the performances. however they are too large to post on the blog, given that some folks are reading from dial-up connections. If I post them on a video-sharing site, such as YouTube, I'll let you all know.