On growing comfortable with exploring difficult subjects

I love that you are unafraid to reference details in African life that I too grew up with, like ubuntu [a philosophical concept from Zulu that means “person is a person through other people”] and tuck shops [a mini-convenience store]. You tackle unfamiliar subjects in a very familiar way without alienating your audience.

Exactly, yeah! I didn’t realize that I was tackling these subjects, because I wrote the album over a long period of time. The very first song that I started might’ve been in 2012. And it may have been somewhat of an obsession to some extent, because it’s a lot about family. And when you’re so far away, all you can think of is family and how they’re changing. You’re seeing the WhatsApp groups, everyone is chatting and you’re so far away and you don’t get it. You can’t be as involved, because in some ways it’s painful. But also you know that family is what makes me me. At the same time, I wouldn’t be a musician if I had stayed with my family.

That really resonates. In certain phases of life when you’re in your comfort zone you can’t explore the world fully. I really think that being foreign can feel revelatory and transformative for your soul.

Exactly. I needed to be here in order to discover the parts that I wouldn’t have access to if I was home. And then also thinking of the people, this music, a large part of it came from home and the songs that we used to sing as family in church or outside. Dikhwaere, you see it on television with the ZCC tradition. Botswana, we go hard on that. ZCC, they do the stomping with a little bit of Zulu influence. But for us it’s choirs and maybe a little step, but we go harder. That part is so infused inside of me, recognizing that there’s a musical tradition that I come from that wants to express itself, but I have to be a little far in order to find it and express it.

So when the subject matter [for the music] came, it was mostly about my family, but I wanted to take a little bit more time with it. It is my family, so I want to represent them very well. They’re not very public people. Even me being a musician is hard for some parts of my family to stomach. So I wanted to be gentle and delicate with them, talking about them and representing them musically. Even if it’s not anything they would listen to themselves, [I want them to see that] I would be proud that this is my heritage, this is my family.

Musically, it harkens back to Botswana and Southern Africa as a region, things like Bubblegum. I’m not completely reinventing the wheel. It still harkens to the tradition and the music, but it’s an evolution.

Do you ever feel like you’re thrust into the role of being an ambassador for African music? There’s this new swell of focus on African artists with people like Tyla getting deserved attention, but you and I know these genres have been around for so long.

I play that role to some extent in the US, because so far as I know, in the territorial United States, I sometimes feel like the only musician from Botswana. But there are a lot of people who are working on music from Botswana in the US, gospel or things like that. But worldwide, thankfully, I’m not the ambassador and I would not want to be the ambassador. I just saw a post from a Motswana musician, Mpho Sebina. She’s championing Botswana, representing Botswana in the way that I think Botswana wants to be represented. She has the look, she’s from the right tribe. And I don’t think, coming from the African continent, you also know that nationalism is kind of bullshit. I come from a group of people that were mostly positioned around the border between Botswana and Zimbabwe.

And my great-grandmothers, there was no border, they would just go to see family. And then now that there is a border, the people on one side are not doing as well as the other side, because of the countries that they ended up in. And so people need passports in order to see family. And it wasn’t the case before then. So I think nationalism doesn’t mean anything to me. Of course, it means a lot that I’m Motswana. There’s certain ways in which you want to represent your people. And my people are more than just Batswana. I also sing in Kalanga a lot, a language that’s spoken in the northeast of Botswana, and it’s not one of the national languages of Botswana. And I want to represent that as well, that we are expansive.

Has exposing people to your heritage in turn expanded your view of American pop?

I think it has to some extent. Some of our languages are tonal and trying to slot my language into a song, you find that, “Oh, I can’t just use this melody that I was thinking of. The melody has to change in order for the language to make sense.” As I was thinking of singing in Kalanga, I realized that even the bass line had to change. And that’s a beautiful thing. Now I appreciate a lot of music from all over the African continent differently. It may seem obvious, but certain Igbo music, the tones, I’m just like, “Whoa! The melodies are so intricate.” And in Yoruba, it’s not about the language being tonal, but it calls for different melodies. That’s what I appreciated more about my language, like, “Oh, it’s leading me this way.”

It’s infectious. It’s really, really powerful. And you’re singing about things like women’s health, fibroids—the sort of things that you’d only expect to talk about among friends. You’re not only coming at this intimate topic as an African woman, you’re having to translate that into women’s rights in America. And fibroids are just under-researched in general.

Absolutely, absolutely. I have a friend who just had a hysterectomy yesterday, a trumpet player, young, under 30, and she had to get it removed, because she’d be on tour and practically passed out. I’ve had the surgery twice. A myomectomy. I was told if you have a myomectomy, first of all, you cannot have a natural birth afterwards. You have scar tissue on your uterus, which will compromise maybe even for an embryo to implant itself on the wall of the uterus, because it’s like it’s all scar tissue.

I had fibroids removed in 2019, and they were pedunculated, so it was like a wrecking ball swinging all up in there. And it’s major surgery. But still it’s not talked about. Not only are Black women in America ignored in terms of medical issues in general, we’re talking about a health issue that just doesn’t get discussed, which makes me incredibly grateful that you’re broaching the topic.

Thank you. I wouldn’t want to do another myomectomy. The second surgery took longer because parts of my uterus had fused to my intestine. [Now] I think I would probably do a partial hysterectomy. But the album was kind of like me writing to my family, to my mother, my father who passed away, thanking them for what they’ve done and who they are, and then also writing back accounts from the US. The fibroid thing is just something that is happening. And then another thing, you’ve seen this in South Africa, where there’s a lot of evangelical Christianity that has welccomed a lot of culty elements. It’s very scary.

So are you spiritual? Where do you put yourself in that realm when it comes to your art?

It’s hard for me to say that I’m spiritual. I would like to be, but I’m so disgusted by the ways in which spirituality has blinded a lot of people in my family. But I also see how comforting it is and how there’s a community aspect that I miss, and I miss singing in church a lot. I grew up Catholic.

When a lot of Americans and Europeans think of African artists – and this is a gross generalization – I always feel like people assume they should be speaking about either politics or religion.

Yes!

But your fluid experimentation with genres gives you room to play with these subjects that aren’t just placed in a simple gospel song, or some political diatribe.

I think there’s certain things that as a Black woman in America, you’re expected to talk about: the big things, racism. And they’re there all the time. I think white artists don’t need to talk about those things. They’re free to sing about anything. For me, I think because politics is happening to me, I have to sing about what’s happening to me. That’s my experience. Politics is happening to everyone and everyone is political, even if you’re singing about love or only about frivolous things, because your life is, to some extent, quite frivolous because of the privileges that you’ve been afforded. That is political, to sing about frivolous things. And I would like to sing about those things.

Wouldn’t that be amazing?

[Laughs] I would love to, but my experience is different. I would like to have the freedom to sing about everything. I don’t want to just be seen as an advocate or an activist.

Simply living and surviving shouldn’t need to be a form of activism.

Yeah, yeah. There are actually activists that are doing the work every single day. And maybe this helps the work in some way, but it is not my full-time job. I also don’t want to diminish what it is that they do, because I am just talking about my experience.

How do you know how much to keep to yourself, to keep the sanctity of those memories and those experiences?

There are certain things that the music calls for that I’m a little uncomfortable about. But because my music is so different, even to another person from Southern Africa, I think I won’t have a large audience from Botswana or maybe even South Africa. There’ve been a lot of people who are like, “Come to South Africa, let’s play a show,” or, “Let’s collaborate.” But not a lot of people speak Kalanga. And so the part that I sing in Kalanga, I know that mostly no one will understand it outright. Because in actuality, about 200,000 people speak Kalanga.

But at the same time, that’s intrinsic to what makes it so special.

Yeah. There have been some lyrics that I haven’t put in, because I feel like it was too personal. I don’t mention names. I don’t mention some of the specifics about the secrets that people are keeping. Because unfortunately, a lot of people keep secrets, and families keep secrets. But the song calls for it sometimes, and there’ve been times where I was like, “Well, it will have to stay there.”

You do a lot of the art direction as well, and what I love about your videos is that they all tell different stories but they all look like they were shot similarly in a sense, like they’re part of the same family. Shooting in Botswana, the light there hits different.

The first VHS tape that we had was a music video tape with South African musicians. And it was like a movie to me. I loved it so much, and they were so impactful. Seeing people like Brenda Fassie, I am so appreciative of the art that they gave me through their music videos. I wanted to do the same thing. I’ve always loved music videos. And, of course, then MTV came.

We talked earlier about getting into a space when writing that can open you up to other channels, some other doors, but you have to be in that space first for those doors to open. For me, starting, I was already a fashion designer, so that’s what I do as my profession. I work as a handbag and shoe designer. That’s what brought me to New York. I went to FIT, at the Fashion Institute of Technology, to study accessories design. And the only person I freelance for right now is Tory Burch, but I freelance.

That makes sense considering how natural the styling is.

Thank you so much.

Freelancing in something like accessories, I’m not going to get into the weeds about it, but how do you manage splitting your creativity and energy? Do they intersect?

To some extent, at least how I dress, it helps me to step onto the stage. I make my own clothing for the stage. I’m very shy, so this was a way that I could step into my role as a lead singer. When I was in other bands as a percussion player, I didn’t have to. I just would come with my instrument. That was the way that I hid.

Using the percussion like a barrier or a guard.

Exactly. Now my clothes are kind of my guard. They facilitate me to step into this role and to play the character. Well, not a character necessarily, but to usher me and the audience into the space, to say, “We are here, setting the stage, this is what we are getting into.”

I would imagine that really helps you be comfortable sharing those inner emotions and thoughts, too. Was there a specific moment where you decided you needed to step out in front rather than being in a band?

It was the pandemic. I had quit my band, all my bands, and I missed performing. Morgan [Greenstreet], my collaborator, and I were writing music together, and at the time we all thought we were going to die. So you’re like, “Why not just put this music out?”

“Why not risk my life with this art, too?”

[Laughs] Yeah. So we put it out, and then someone asked us to perform at this protest. We did it, and someone there asked if I wanted to perform at something else. It was really scary in the beginning because it’s a completely different animal being the lead performer. It was really quite painful for me. The visual aspect, I always pushed the envelope there, partly to hide as well. And then also I’ve seen other traditions use clothing to accentuate a movement. I’ve mentioned the Tsonga people a lot, but with Tsonga, their skirts, and with Zulu, something is dangling, something is accentuating a movement. And so if I’m lacking in some way, then maybe my clothes will do the rest of the work.

I was thinking, I’ll give this performing thing a couple of years, and if I still feel terrible, I’ll stop. Because it felt really uncomfortable. But once I started to move a little more on stage, it took me outside of my head. I was very much in my head thinking about, “Does the audience like this? Am I really terrible? I’m terrible. Look at that person’s face, they don’t like what’s happening. My voice, it’s not good.” I couldn’t get myself out of that space until I started moving, and then that movement took me out of my head.

Considering that sort of natural, organic way you grew into yourself, what does it take for you to feel like you’ve succeeded with this project?

I’m so simple. Not simple in a bad way, but just even having the chance to make music is being successful for me. I came from Francistown. I could have been any name, in any small town in the world. I didn’t think that I’d do music. Being an artist wasn’t even on my radar, as much as I loved music and consuming art. I just didn’t think it was accessible to me.

And then I joined a band. I thought I was successful in that band. I’m playing this instrument that I didn’t go to school for, and I’m touring, I’m going to Europe, I’m going to Nigeria. “This is incredible. They don’t even know I’m not a musician. I didn’t go to school for this.” And then I didn’t know that I could write music, so that I wrote music that I’m proud of, and then I’m putting it out and performing it? I find that as being successful.