{"id":7512,"date":"2021-12-22T10:39:53","date_gmt":"2021-12-22T10:39:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/tsepo-tshola-a-life-well-lived"},"modified":"2021-12-22T11:03:04","modified_gmt":"2021-12-22T11:03:04","slug":"tsepo-tshola-a-life-well-lived","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/tsepo-tshola-a-life-well-lived","title":{"rendered":"Tsepo Tshola: a life well lived"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Lesotho. <\/strong><\/span>SONGS are like windows into the souls of musicians. But as you peep into those windows you see your soul as well. Perhaps that\u2019s because the song is meant for you as much as it is for the musician.<\/p>\n

When musicians claim to be singing for society, they mean you, me, others and themselves. They are speaking of you and to you. Of themselves and to themselves. This is why your favourite song is most likely to be one you wish you had written.<\/p>\n

One more bridge
\nOne more dream
\nI search the horizon
\nI must keep moving
\nIt must have been in 2000 or somewhere thereabouts when I first heard that verse from a shrieking radio on a chicken bus whose driver seemed to deliberately drive into the ditches that punctuated the treacherous and torturous road to my rural home in Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n

Ten years later I would discover it was written by Frank Leepa, Sankomota\u2019s leader and guitarist. Then last week, after another ten, there was an epiphany of sorts. It came with the numbing news of T\u0161epo Mobu Tshola\u2019s death at 68.<\/p>\n

As we hurriedly tried to cobble the anecdotes of T\u0161epo\u2019s life into an obituary, I realised that this song was for Leepa as much as it was for T\u0161epo, who provided the backing vocals on it.<\/p>\n

It aptly epitomises T\u0161epo\u2019s career. Always looking for new frontiers to conquer. Unafraid of change. Forever on the move. Never bound by the world or time. Even as he lay on his bed in the Covid-19 ward, T\u0161epo was thinking of the next phase.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said we should meet as soon as he recovers because he had an exciting project for us,\u201d says Budhaza Mapefane, his prot\u00e9g\u00e9 with whom he briefly played in Sankomota and then recorded his first two solo albums in the 1990s.<\/p>\n

That was a few days before he died. He oozed the same confidence and optimism when he spoke to Bonner Seakhoa, his friend of more than six decades. \u201cI could hear he was not well but he was already talking about meeting soon to talk about some new projects,\u201d Seakhoa recalls of their last phone call a few days before the tragedy.<\/p>\n

There is no remarkable story about how the two met. They were together from the start, introduced to each other by geography, church and age. Their fathers were ordained on the same day as ministers of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Teyateyaneng, a small but vibrant town that bred them and to which T\u0161epo would \u2018return\u2019 to die after a musical career of more than half a century.<\/p>\n

T\u0161epo, his parents, three brothers and two sisters were the church\u2019s jukebox on Sundays, during prayer meetings, weddings and funerals. Away from church, which was rarely missed, they would get up to \u2018boy things\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was my friend who later became my brother,\u201d Seakhoa says. That\u2019s not a riddle but an apt way to describe a lifelong friendship.<\/p>\n

Theirs was an ordinary childhood in which boys do \u201cnaughty but harmless things\u201d. They once called a \u2018crisis meeting\u2019 after bumping heads over a girl. When the girl could not decide who she liked, they reached a pact to both leave her.<\/p>\n

There was also the day they got drunk stupid at Blue Mountain Hotel in Teyateyaneng. Sozzled in both limbs and head, they staggered out of the hotel and tried dragging each other home until T\u0161epo said he could go no further.<\/p>\n

As if on cue a man on a bicycle passed them. They stopped the man, Seakhoa pulled ten cents from his pocket and hired him to take T\u0161epo home. T\u0161epo arrived in one piece but slept under a tree in front of his house because he couldn\u2019t face his father and chorister mother in that state.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the morning we swore never to do it again,\u201d Seakhoa says, \u201cbut it happened a few more times because we were just boys\u201d.<\/p>\n

One day Tsepo announced that he was moving to Maseru for a carpentry course at Lerotholi Polytechnic College. Seakhoa wasn\u2019t surprised because he knew it was his friend\u2019s nature \u201cto no not only move but move fast and frequently\u201d.<\/p>\n

For him, this was just another phase for T\u0161epo. What bothered him slightly, though, was his friend\u2019s next destination: carpentry. \u201cI knew his passion for music and was sure it would not be long before he returned to it.<\/p>\n

\u201d
\nSeakhoa was right because the music would however occasionally steal T\u0161epo from his studies. But being a stubborn man, T\u0161epo thought he could work the wood and still entertain with his baritone voice.<\/p>\n

He was wrong and it was Mokoenya Chele, who later became a friend and a business partner, who made Tsepo realise he was delaying the inevitable. Chele says he had just formed the Blue Diamonds Bband and was looking \u201cfor a voice to shore up our vocals\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had heard that Tsepo used to sing in a church choir with his family and looked for him\u201d. T\u0161epo would sing for the Blue Diamonds for a year, during which he dropped out of college to become a full-time musician.<\/p>\n

And thus, began an illustrious career full of twists, calamity, betrayal, stumbling and joy. The twist is how he frequently moved both bands and countries.<\/p>\n

Lesotho, South Africa, Botswana and the United Kingdom played host to his musical career. He also spent a few months as a DJ in Swaziland. Calamity was when he lost his wife in 1984 (he never remarried, instead devoting his life to music and his two boys).<\/p>\n

Betrayal is how he was repeatedly cheated by producers, record companies and promoters. He called them sharks who promised so much but gave very little.<\/p>\n

He stumbled when he struggled with a drug addiction that almost upended his career. And joy\u2026. well, that is for the thrills of making music and performing.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe would sometimes tell me that he is not a musician but a presenter of songs,\u201d says Budhaza. Whatever that meant.<\/p>\n

When the Blue Diamonds collapsed due to what Chele says were \u201cmanagerial issues\u201d, T\u0161epo did not stick. He simply said his goodbyes and opened another chapter.<\/p>\n

That episode came in the form of the Anti-Antiques, a band Leepa had started while in high school. T\u0161epo spoke of how he met Leepa by chance. \u201cIt was God\u2019s thing.<\/p>\n

I was looking for a match, so one of us had a match and the other had a cigarette: sure, man, let\u2019s share,\u201d Tsepo said in a TV interview several years ago.<\/p>\n

That was the beginning of a collaboration that sustained the Anti-Antiques for a year before it collapsed to be replaced by Uhuru which toured South Africa in 1979 but was quickly banned for its political songs.<\/p>\n

Back home, the group changed its name to Sankomota to avoid confusion with the Caribbean-based band Black Uhuru which was already established. Sankomota\u2019s first album debut, Sankomota, was released to much acclaim in 1983.<\/p>\n

With songs like Vukani, Uhuru, House on Fire and Mad House, it was the first LP album recorded in Lesotho. But by then T\u0161epo was breaking new frontiers.<\/p>\n

Never satisfied to do one thing at a time, he was already stirring several musical pots. It was as if Lesotho was too small for him. \u201cHe had that spontaneity of a creative person.<\/p>\n

Always eager to break walls and conquer the next horizon,\u201d says Budhaza. Hugh Masekela hints at the same character in his biography, Still Grazing: The Musical Journey of Hugh Masekela when he describes how T\u0161epo showed up on his door with a suitcase.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery surprised, I greeted him with a welcoming embrace and asked: \u201cAre you guys playing in town this weekend?\u201d \u201cT\u0161epo replied with a big smile on his beaming face, \u201cI have come to you, Bra Hugh.<\/p>\n

\u201d Just like that, T\u0161epo had left a band in Lesotho to play with Kalahari, which Masekela had founded when he briefly moved to Botswana from the United States where he had been in exile. The next phase was the United Kingdom whose doors he would later open for Sankomota.<\/p>\n

The keyboardist Sebabatso \u2018Sunshine\u2019 Mokoena, who toured South Africa with Uhuru, says it was T\u0161epo who persuaded Julian Bahula, South African composer and bandleader and drummer, to bring Sankomota to the UK.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know Bahula bought tickets for just a few members of Sankomota and the rest had to find their way.<\/p>\n

Others had to sell their cars to buy the tickets,\u201d says Mokoena, whose career fizzled after Uhuru\u2019s tour in South Africa. In a way, one could say it was T\u0161epo\u2019s rolling nature that gave the group its big break.<\/p>\n

But first there were several years of lean cows when the group toured Europe largely as the musical voice of the African National Congress (ANC). \u201cWe were paid with bread and salami,\u201d T\u0161epo said.<\/p>\n

It was a struggle on several fronts. They were trying to prick the world\u2019s conscience about the evils of South Africa\u2019s apartheid regime, chasing a record deal and trying to eke a living some 10 000km from home.<\/p>\n

In the end, they achieved all with their tours and politically conscious music that produced three successful albums. The apartheid regime would fall much later when Sankomota had made it big but it was largely the fight against it that thrust them into the international limelight.<\/p>\n

The Dreams come true album was released in the UK in 1987, with the hit song Now or Never which warned that Africa would wait forever if she folded her arms and waited for free things.<\/p>\n

It was a general clarion call to Africa to take its rightful place in the world but given Sankomota\u2019s reputation for politically themed songs many saw it as a warning to black South Africans that freedom would not be handed to them on a silver platter.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the title itself seemed to tacitly remind South Africans that their dream for freedom would eventually come true. Writing on the wall came in 1989 with songs like Bakubeletsa, Disposable hero, Papa, Greed and Tough Talk.<\/p>\n

It did not go unnoticed that the album was released when the Apartheid regime was on its last legs due to immense international pressure and internal strife.<\/p>\n

In Sekunjalo, a son tells his parents he is going to fight to reclaim the throne because \u2018Batho bana ba re tlolisa khati\u2019. Sankomota\u2019s Exploration \u2013 A New Phase might just as well have been telling the regime that the wheels of freedom are turning fast.<\/p>\n

In Stop the War, T\u0161epo pleads for peace:
\nI cannot draw a line
\nTo any man that rules
\nI can only plead
\nFor the life of men
\nThe generosity of God is unchangeable
\nHe gave us life
\nSo let us live
\nSing along
\nTo the heads of State (Stop the war)
\nDiplomatic cause
\nPope and deacons
\nPresiding elders
\nHey we got to stop the war
\nStop the war
\nPolitical leaders
\nThe list is endless
\n\u201cThere is no way you can keep quiet when you feel pain.<\/p>\n

We had to be vocal because we were driven by pain,\u201d said T\u0161epo when asked about Sankomota\u2019s political songs about South Africa. What was going on in your heart when you sang Stop the war, asked the young interviewer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt goes to the pain. If you don\u2019t do it (speak out), nobody will,\u201d he said. And he understood that as a musician he had the privilege to speak against injustices.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was given the opportunity to be vocal because I had a stage to say whatever I felt.<\/p>\n

\u201d
\nExploration-A New Phase was also somewhat prophetic on Sankomota\u2019s future. T\u0161epo opened a new phase by going solo. How he described the separation speaks to his refusal to be restrained.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just happened,\u201d he said, adding that there comes a time when they \u201coutgrow the imprisonment\u201d.<\/p>\n

Calling it a \u201cnatural transformation\u201d, T\u0161epo said: \u201cIt wasn\u2019t our choice. We got to a point where we say \u2018Hey man, I am going this way\u2019\u201d. Whether it was an acrimonious or amicable separation we might never know.<\/p>\n

T\u0161epo however continued to revere Leepa, once describing him as the greatest guitarist and composer he had ever known. We cannot only speculate about Sankomota\u2019s fortunes if T\u0161epo and Leepa had remained together.<\/p>\n

T\u0161epo\u2019s success as a solo artist however indicates that he could have indeed outgrown the band. This could justify him describing it as a prison of sorts and possibly why The Village Pope, his first album, was successful.<\/p>\n

Budhaza says \u201cit was in T\u0161epo\u2019s nature to try new things\u2019 \u2018. He however says both Leepa and Tsepo \u201clost something in the divorce\u201d. \u201cFrank (Leepa) was an amazing guitarist and composer while T\u0161epo was a brilliant vocalist. It was a great combination. \u201d<\/p>\n

Budhaza briefly stayed with Sankomota before joining T\u0161epo to record The Village Pope and later Let\u2019s hold hands, the second album that Budhaza says he gave the title \u201cbecause I always thought there was a chance for T\u0161epo and Frank to reconcile\u201d.<\/p>\n

T\u0161epo would go on to record including Rivers and Waterfalls, Leseli, New Dawn and Ask Me. His later songs would gravitate towards his religion as if he was returning to his roots where he sang with his parents, brothers and sisters.<\/p>\n

He transformed regular hymns into hit songs. In between, he found time for a stint in management as well as singing with Brenda Fassie, Rebecca Malope, Oliver Mtukudzi, Sands, Musa and Casper Nyovest.<\/p>\n

Five minutes. That\u2019s about how much I spent with T\u0161epo. We were driving from Maputsoe with a friend when a Sankomota song nudged the chit-chat towards T\u0161epo.<\/p>\n

The friend said he had known T\u0161epo for years and we could meet him. And so, at my instance, a call was made. An hour later I was sitting next to a potbellied man in shorts, morning shoes and a vest.<\/p>\n

Here was the legend in his simplest form, basking in what remained of that day\u2019s sun. I broached the idea of a biography, which had always been my agenda, and his face lit.<\/p>\n

He pondered for a moment as he caressed his rice-like beard. \u201cThat would be good. I have a lot of stories to tell. A lot of them,\u201d he said. But then Covid-19 intensified and \u2018sabotaged\u2019 the project.<\/p>\n

At least that\u2019s how I consoled myself when I heard of his death last week. The truth is however more nuanced. It was procrastination that swallowed the project.<\/p>\n

That, and the nervousness at the thought of telling the story of a musical giant like T\u0161epo. There was going to be a time when I would summon the courage to do it but his death was swifter.<\/p>\n

Now here I am, labouring to gather sketches from his friends and fans when I could have let him tell his story. Yet this is pointless regret for T\u0161epo has already eloquently told his story through music. Which is why many will swear they knew T\u0161epo.<\/p>\n

They don\u2019t mean the man but his music, which is precisely what T\u0161epo had wanted for years until age started creeping up on him and he became open to the idea of documenting the life story of the man behind the music.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to tell the young ones what it means to be an artist,\u201d he told me in our brief encounter.<\/p>\n

Now that he is no more, having succumbed to Covid last Thursday, the colossal task of telling the story of the Bra T\u0161epo behind the music is left to his music and those who knew him.<\/p>\n

Seakhoa doubts there is a way to separate T\u0161epo the man and T\u0161epo the musician. \u201cHe was his music and his music was him,\u201d he says. \u201cThe frankness and abhorrence for injustice you heard in his music were exactly what he was as a man.<\/p>\n

\u201d
\nT\u0161epo died just as the ambers of the fires that ravaged South Africa in recent weeks were still glowing.<\/p>\n

What would he have said were he to have been interviewed?
\nHis answer could likely be similar to the one he gave when he was asked what freedom means to him during a TV interview several years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think freedom is difficult. It is too demanding. It needs discipline. It needs focus. So, unless you learn freedom, freedom will destroy you,\u201d he said. T\u0161epo will be buried in Thaba Bosiu as a national hero on July 30.<\/p>\n

That is a well-deserved honour but one that pales in comparison to the tribute Basotho would have paid him if they were to cherish his message of peace, love, hard work and respect. There will never be another T\u0161epo Mobu Tshola.<\/p>\n

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

Africa-Press – Lesotho. SONGS are like windows into the souls of musicians. But as you peep into those windows you see your soul as well. Perhaps that\u2019s because the song is meant for you as much as it is for the musician. When musicians claim to be singing for society, they mean you, me, others […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":7511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,9,16],"tags":[233,246,245,1337],"class_list":["post-7512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-miscellaneous","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-lesotho","tag-lesotho","tag-songs"],"yoast_head":"\nTsepo Tshola: a life well lived - Lesotho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"SONGS are like windows into the souls of musicians. 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