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A show at the Railway Club in Mahalapye is another pointer to those difficult times. With neither food nor accommodation, Senyatso and the entire band slept rough in a car and had to go on stage without so much as freshening up the next day. Nono quotes Senyatso from that experience: “The lesson of life,” she says he said, “is that if you want something badly, you must fight without let to get it.” She recalls too that Senyatso told them that the legendary Zimbabwean protest musician, Oliver Mtukuzi, didn’t get recognition until album No. 15! Nono joined Botswana’s own legend Ndingo Johwa’s IkaJazz in 2002 as a backup singer, recording five albums with him. She discloses a little known fact about Senyatso, which is that the musician was pan-Africanist who believed in ancestral spirits and would never miss an opportunity to partake in ‘mophaso’ in his native Tsetsebjwe village. This songstress comes across as rather reserved and gives the impression of being out of harmony with the extrovert types whose adrenaline is fuelled by large crowds. But the serenity is more like the calm before a storm because this diva becomes a creature of another order as soon as she goes on stage, mic in hand. She believes she has inherited these qualities from Sekopelo, her mother, who has been a presence on the local Twantsho Borukuthi (crime prevention) committees whose campaign platforms include choral music with pointed lyrics. However, her mother’s potential career as a songstress was nipped in the bud by Nono’s loving grandmother for fear that music was an unrewarding profession fit only for fools and layabouts. Nevertheless, Nono was determined early not to let these obstacles hinder her path to stardom. Performing in Sweden with her band of four on the occasion of Botswana’s independence in 2016 is an outstanding illustration of her indomitable spirit. So was her presence on stage on a similar occasion in Japan in 2015. There they had an opportunity to go to Tokyo’s Calabash Club where the likes of Miriam Makeba, Michael Jackson and Jonathan Butler had performed. Worldclass saxophonist David Sanborn was on stage on the particular night, an occasion that has since fed an ambition for Nono to perform there some day. The songbird had been to Japan before, the first time having been with Maxy also on the occasion of Botswana’s independence in 2007. Ironically, it can be said that Nono actually faced a wider opposition than her grandmother because inspite of evidence to the contrary, people insisted that Botswana’s music industry was at best uncharted territory where aspirants had only broken dreams to show for their efforts and at worst such treacherous terrain that men and women emerged as weather-beaten survivors teetering on a precarious precipice between certain doom and receding redemption. She concedes that the “Doomsday pessimists” may have a point but notes that some people go into music for the wrong reasons, such as fame, hence she has stayed the course. Nono discovered midstream that branding herself was not going to be easy because she needed money for photoshoots, travelling, make-up and the accessories that go with the image of ambition and success in the music industry. “Sponsorship and getting a good manager were hard to come by,” she recalls. “People never want to associate with a new product because of the attendant risk of failure.” And so it was no easy walk to freedom. Even so, the tireless tyro reckons she has made it because she now earns a living by singing the blues and jazz aplenty, which for her is at once a vocation and a profession. This she does with the poise fit for the chanteuse that she has become, yet the shinplasters do not match the aplomb. “Not at all,” Nono picks up the cue. “Jazz is sure growing in Botswana but whenever we perform alongside artists from other countries, local artistes are stinted. Promoters are still partial to artistes from outside regardless of the fact that we have come unto our own. Over time, a few great singers and musicians get tired of always being paid a pinch and drop off the stage for good. We jeer at them for lacking grit when we should be helping to change the mindset of robbing us.” Meanwhile, she identifies piracy and royalties as other serious problem areas for artistes in Botswana. In her view, concert attendance may be good throughout the country but album sales are poor while payment of royalties by COSBOTS is haphazard. These opinions are quite widespread across Botswana’s music industry, hence this single mother of a 17-year old soccer player often makes a call for a fluid database to follow and show the airplay of songs and music items on radio and TV. Her views should carry weight because in addition to international exposure and other achievements, Nono was the Best Jazz Album and Best Female Artist of the Year in the 2015 BOMU Awards. Of her three albums, her greatest hits are Borre, Izaura, Nthekele Ring, Baa Mpateletsa and Rrantshekgwane. Watch this space for Nono’s fourth album before this year is out! In the meantime, you are invited to join this beautiful songstress in her countrywide war on drugs. The “I stand up hashtag Drugs Must Fall” campaign targets mainly students. 46 www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017
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