Sunday, February 16, 2025

Ezebizo’s pays tribute to Mandela in song

After introducing his product as a single in 2013, Onkemetse Monyere aka Ezebizo this month released a nine-track album titled ‘Bagaka’, which he labels ‘tribute to Grandfather of Democracy-Nelson Mandela’. The album is a wonderful gift for those who love traditional genre of music spiced with some reggae rhythms as well as poetic vocals.

Though ‘Bagaka’ means heroes, the album praises only three heroes by the artist’s interpretation of hero. His first heroes are himself and his backing vocalists. He does this in the first track, ‘Re banna tota’. Next is the late Nelson Mandela whom he motivates in his death not to relent in advocating for equality of all human races.

The third hero is the president of the Republic of Botswana whom he says was borne king. He says, “Gossipers can go ahead and gossip, critics criticize while musical praises can reach mountain tops, but nothing can take his kingship away from him.”.

In other songs the Gabane born musician acknowledges the role played by a youth dominated pressure group, Develop Gabane Campaign- track six- Ko ntsweng. He further criticizes men for enjoying cheating their partners but turning to violence whenever their partners cheat them- leading to uncalled for, inhumane acts of passion killings. In the last two he encourages reunions in relationships- Maruping-track eight and passes sincere condolences to Haitians over the catastrophe that befell them a few years ago.

All in all he is a promising newcomer in this music arena, having started singing while at Junior Secondary School. He participated in borankana folk music groups at school and his passion for music grew since then. Immediately after school he joined a group called Mathaithai. They released a single and in 2012 he went solo.

RELATED STORIES

Read this week's paper