{"id":6026,"date":"2021-11-20T11:53:16","date_gmt":"2021-11-20T11:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/sekhankula-back-in-the-music-arena"},"modified":"2021-11-20T12:36:14","modified_gmt":"2021-11-20T12:36:14","slug":"sekhankula-back-in-the-music-arena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/sekhankula-back-in-the-music-arena","title":{"rendered":"Sekhankula back in the music arena"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Lesotho. <\/strong><\/span>TWO National University of Lesotho (NUL) humanities lecturers are creating a new brand of music that borrows from Afro-Jazz and other African sounds with a mix of sekhankula.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe result is a new unique brand of music that sends you to the seventh heaven,\u201d remarked one enthusiast. The lecturers are Mape Mohlomi and Professor T\u0161episo Rant\u0161o,
\nWelcome to the world of \u201cRant\u0161o le Mohlomi. \u201d<\/p>\n

In there, you will be enthralled by the likes of \u201cBophelo bo joalo,\u201d a mesmerising voiceless song about Covid-19. \u201cBothoto ke lefa la ba bohlale,\u201d which profiles the realities of how some people have normalised cheating and stealing from others in all areas of life, and \u201cShapa tsotsi e mathe lebelo.<\/p>\n

\u201d
\nWe are used to all shades of African music.<\/p>\n

We know Afro-Jazz and we know the apparently dying sekhankula music that, in its purest form, used to entertain Basotho through much of the 20th century.<\/p>\n

Sekhankula is made from junk metal tins and is played with a horsehair bow. What we haven\u2019t heard, at least at this level, is the modern mix of established African sounds with a more traditional music like the sekhankula music.<\/p>\n

So today, \u201cRant\u0161o le Mohlomi\u201d album is bringing you exactly that. \u201cI have been in music for quite some time,\u201d said Mohlomi as he introduces his new album. Of course we have covered the story of his music journey on this platform before.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, when people listened to my music, they have often confused it with the music of such legends as T\u0161epo T\u0161ola, Oliver Mtukudzi, Bhudaza Mapefane and so on.<\/p>\n

\u201d
\n\u201cI want to reach a point where just hearing the sounds will lead to a name, Mape, not the artists that came before me.<\/p>\n

\u201d
\nMohlomi said he had to think of new sounds, based on old Lesotho traditional music that could be fused with the current popular African sounds.<\/p>\n

He went searching. \u201cI could locate only one person left in Lesotho who could play Setolotolo. I could also locate more than five who still played Lesiba.<\/p>\n

Here I mean people who were really skilled in these old Basotho instruments,\u201d he said. Lesiba consists of a flattened quill attached to a long piece of sinew string, which is itself stretched over a piece of hardwood.<\/p>\n

The wood acts as the resonating surface for the string. Setolotolo is a three-piece construction comprised of cylindrical centre section of wood with a hole in each end for insertion of smaller, slightly arched pieces of wood.<\/p>\n

It is strung with copper wire, bound to middle of centre section and tied to end sections. One end of centre section is bound with several wrappings of twined plant fibre with loop for hanging.<\/p>\n

Once in time, fate would see him in Professor Rant\u0161o\u2019s office. He saw the picture on the wall in which the then young Rant\u0161o was holding senkhakula beside a white lady.<\/p>\n

The message was clear. Professor Rant\u0161o knew a thing or two about sekhankula. He would later find that the Professor knew a lot, actually, he lived the music. The two colleagues were then thrown into a search for sekhankula to see if the proposed \u201ccollabo\u201d would work.<\/p>\n

\u201cI played sekhankula even before I went to primary school, following on the footsteps of my brothers,\u201d introduced Professor Rant\u0161o whose love and mastery of this deeply tradition music seems to be at odds with his status as a professor at the university.<\/p>\n

Of course, he doesn\u2019t mind killing such outdated perceptions. \u201cDespite me and my friends practising sekhankula for years, only when I was in Standard Seven was I successful enough to create music out of it.<\/p>\n

Most of my peers never lived to do it. They all gave up. \u201d
\nThe lesson? \u201cIt may look simple but the sekhankula instrument is one of the hardest to master.<\/p>\n

\u201d
\nIt needs patience, it needs passion, it needs time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t have a combination of the three you won\u2019t make it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

When he finished high school, he herded sheep and cattle for two years before making it to NUL. That was the time he honed his sekhankula skills to the maximum. He came out of with a few lessons. First, those who took care of sheep or, more conveniently, goats, were able to master sekhankula better.<\/p>\n

That is because, herding those don\u2019t keep you as busy as when you herd cattle which need constant attention, \u201cthat is why cattle herders often preferred lesiba, which they could even hold with one hand while the other took care of the animals\u201d.<\/p>\n

Second, the sekhankula music mastery starts with the assembly of the instrument itself. The tin has to be of the right size and it has to be put through fire to produce good sounds.<\/p>\n

The tin openings have to be just right not too big, not too small. The stick has to be of the right thickness and the right length. You will also need to make a careful search for horse tail hair.<\/p>\n

It is long enough to make a good instrument. Theory aside, Mohlomi first bought an existing sekhankula which fell short. Professor Rant\u0161o later scanned the scrapyards to find proper materials with which he created two brand new sekhankula instruments.<\/p>\n

They then sat down and experimented and experimented. The result of the fateful encounter in 2019 in the professor\u2019s office gave us a transformative album in the name of \u201cBothoto ke lefa.<\/p>\n

\u201d
\nThe two academics believe that more needs to be done to document, preserve and recreate old kinds of Basotho music and musical instruments.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope that one day NUL will create a Department of Music for such purposes and more,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Lesotho<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Lesotho. TWO National University of Lesotho (NUL) humanities lecturers are creating a new brand of music that borrows from Afro-Jazz and other African sounds with a mix of sekhankula. \u201cThe result is a new unique brand of music that sends you to the seventh heaven,\u201d remarked one enthusiast. The lecturers are Mape Mohlomi […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":6025,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4,8,16],"tags":[233,246,245,487],"class_list":["post-6026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-culture-and-art","category-homepage-english","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-lesotho","tag-lesotho","tag-music"],"yoast_head":"\nSekhankula back in the music arena - Lesotho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"TWO National University of Lesotho (NUL) humanities lecturers are creating a new brand of music that borrows from Afro-J ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/sekhankula-back-in-the-music-arena\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sekhankula back in the music arena\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"TWO National University of Lesotho (NUL) humanities lecturers are creating a new brand of music that borrows from Afro-J ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/sekhankula-back-in-the-music-arena\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lesotho\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-11-20T11:53:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-11-20T12:36:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2021\/11\/img-6198eba08d00e.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"700\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/sekhankula-back-in-the-music-arena#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/sekhankula-back-in-the-music-arena\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Sekhankula back in the music arena\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-11-20T11:53:16+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-11-20T12:36:14+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/sekhankula-back-in-the-music-arena\"},\"wordCount\":977,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/sekhankula-back-in-the-music-arena#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2021\/11\/img-6198eba08d00e.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Lesotho\",\"Lesotho\",\"music\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"culture and art\",\"homepage-english\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/sekhankula-back-in-the-music-arena#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/sekhankula-back-in-the-music-arena\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/sekhankula-back-in-the-music-arena\",\"name\":\"Sekhankula back in the music arena - 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