He joins Socca Moruakgomo on Easter tour
Botswana love Bhudaza Mapefane and the feeling is mutual. The Lesotho-born Afro-Jazz musician is back, reconnecting with Botswana’s own jazz maestro, Socca Moruakgomo for the Easter holidays tour.
Botswana love Bhudaza Mapefane and the feeling is mutual. The Lesotho-born Afro-Jazz musician is back, reconnecting with Botswana’s own jazz maestro, Socca Moruakgomo for the Easter holidays tour.
Speaking to Time Out last week, the two jazz artists reminisced about their performances since Bhudaza’s debut in 2004.
“We performed together several times and every time we did it was great,” said Bhudaza.
“For me performing in Botswana is like a second nature, it’s home away from home,” said the jazz artist, who first came to Botswana during his days with the Lesotho Afro-jazz group, Sankomota.
Bhudaza has literally performed all over the country, from Molapowabojang to Maun. Despite being one of the most well known and recognised musicians of this decade, Bhudaza has no airs about him. So much that he got the shock of his life when performing sometime back in Maun and the crowd sung along to his music. “I thought to myself, this place is very far considering the distance we had traveled and the people there made me feel welcomed as they knew everyone of my songs’ lyrics.”
It is not just the live performances that get Bhudaza charged up. He enjoys imparting knowledge. “Every time I perform here I always try to have a workshop for upcoming musicians. But this time around the scheduling is too tight and I will not have that opportunity ...hopefully on the next leg of the tour.”
Socca revealed that he admires Bhudaza and appreciates playing alongside him. “We are good friends and we like to perform, so it was only natural that we would eventually do this (tour) again after some time.”
Bhudaza and Socca will start their tour at the Botswana Craft for the Mascom live sessions on March 30th, heading for Selebi Phikwe for March 31st show. On April 1st, the legendary jazz musicians will be in Mochudi, then Palapye on 6th April, heading for Serowe the following day, April 7th and finally Mahalapye on April 8th.
