Never before has a folklore musician captivated a nation as much as Ratsie Sethako did. Even future presidents idolised him.
Speaking at the 2005 Artist of the Year Awards ceremony, former president Sir Ketumile Masire said that while a young boy, he had no grander ambition in life than to pursue a career in music and hopefully play alongside his idol ÔÇô Ratsie ÔÇô some day.
That was not to be.
Masire said that his mother was vehemently opposed to his career choice and he ended up in politics.
Some 34 years after he was tragically mowed down by a truck in Palapye, Ratsie still competes with priests on Radio Botswana for Sunday mornings’ air time. The only studio there was during Ratsie’s day was at RB which today is the only station that has original copies of his music.
Maybe some 34 years from now, elderly Vee fans would fill up a lecture room at the University of Botswana for a public lecture on his music but for now in this era of the evolution of academia and music, Ratsie is the only show in town. Last Thursday, an enthusiastic crowd made up of young and old – and all races, one may add – filled up a lecture room at the University of Botswana to listen to Dr. Batho Molema hold forth on the artistic virtues of that legendary segaba virtuoso. In as far as Ratsie’s music goes, Molema is the most reputable and ultimate listen-to expert. He not only recorded Ratsie’s music but was personally acquainted with the Mongwato old man whom he says he got to respect deeply and love dearly. Cast journalistically, he has Ratsie’s back story down pat. During the lecture, Molema recalled that unlike today, there was never a long queue of people waiting to go into the studio to record. Thus it was possible for him to spend “the whole day” in the studio with Ratsie recording his music.
Ratsie would sing about ‘matshwaro’ (hips) and to Molema’s inquiry about what part of the body that was, he (Ratsie) would supplement his verbal definition by wiggling his lower part of the body seductively to drive the point home. However much they interacted, Ratsie did not pass on his rare talent to Molema. At the lecture, Molema had brought a segaba which he used as a teaching aid. Balancing it one shoulder, he named its parts and briefly demonstrated how the instrument is played. He cannot play it himself and at one point during this demonstration he quipped forlornly that “I wish I could play this instrument.” However, while he cannot play segaba, Molema has done an outstanding job of studying the artist and his craft. Generally, he knows so much about traditional music that UB awarded him an honorary doctorate. Listening closely to Ratsie’s music and Molema’s interpretation of it one gets the sense that apparently, then as now, you had to sing about sex and romance to hold an audience captive.
A re chencheng as some of his other songs, is liberally spiced with what the French call double entendre ÔÇô a word or phrase that may be understood in two different ways, one of which is often sexual.
He tells what seems a simple story about a man on his way back home, when he is actually singing about repressing sexual desire, until he is reunited with his wife.
When in Serowe, Ratsie would obviously have traveled the length and breadth of the village to know that Basimane ward had the most beautiful girls. He sings about a character he calls “Seja” (Setswana for ‘eater’) who is an avid consumer of a certain kind of commodity he does not name but whose identity is easily deducible from the context of the lyrical content. However, Ratsie did not confine himself to cheap-thrill topics.
To the extent possible for him, Ratsie had some political awareness which he repackaged and rendered in song. Molema’s public lecture is one of the ways through which the legacy of this legend is being kept alive.
However, there is no running away from the fact that the worst thing to have happened to Ratsie after he was hit by that truck that fateful day in Palapye was to fall into the hands of those supposed to be his legacy keepers. The culprit list is quite long.
Nobody seems to know where his segaba is. Molema said that if anyone ever came forward with a segaba and claimed that it belonged to Ratsie, the motivation would be “to make money and a name” for themselves. Some of his music has also gone missing. In 1976, Molema remixed A re chencheng with a jazz song and from what was said at the lecture he seems to have done a good job of it. Somebody from the floor enquired about the whereabouts of this remix which used to play on Radio Botswana.
“Somehow we lost it but I still love it – wherever it is,” Molema said.
It would also seem that people were more interested in his music than in the quality and circumstances of his personal life.
The equivalent of that is a diner at a supermall restaurant who is more interested in the quality of service he gets and not the working conditions and background story of the waitress providing that service.
Some quite vital information around Ratsie’s life story is still missing.
For example, what happened to the driver who was driving the truck that killed Ratsie? Was he ever charged and prosecuted? Where exactly in the village did the truck knock him down?
Molema said that around the time he died, Ratsie was going blind and had a “little boy” lead him around with a stick. Someone who was a little boy in 1976 is probably still alive and would remember some quite interesting things to say about Ratsie.
Where is that little boy and what new information can he add to the historical record?
To its credit the government has given Ratsie fairly respectable post-humous recognition. A primary school in Palapye has been named after him. The school opened in 2002 and on one side houses a cultural village. A segaba (not Ratsie’s – that’s for sure) is displayed in one of the huts. His music also gets a fair amount of airplay on the government-owned Radio Botswana.
However, there are young musicians who seem to think that the best way to enjoy Ratsie’s music is to steal, bastardise and cannibalise it. That has really incensed some of Ratsie’s long-time fans.
“Of late I have noted with worry that some musicians in the country lift extensively from Ratsie’s songs and don’t even acknowledge that,” Masire said when he officiated at a ceremony to honour Ratsie in 2003.
Exactly how we should honour Ratsie may be trickier than we have convinced ourselves.
Ratsie’s art form has not died but how much interest is lavished upon those still plying his trade? How many give that segaba-playing old man at the Gaborone main mall the time of their lives or he would only matter when he is no more?
Ratsie was one of the downtrodden and so why not honour his memory by giving his surviving ilk the respect and reward he was denied. Do you love Ratsie but can’t bring yourself to pay your maid a fair day’s pay for a fair day work? You probably would have treated Ratsie the same way. On A re Chencheng, the artist introduces himself as “Ratsie Sethako” but through the linguistic hegemony of some, an ‘L’ has been inserted between the ‘t’ and ‘h’ of his surname to make it what it is not. If there is no confusion on the version he preferred, why can’t we write his name the right way?
