Impromptu Sereetsi-Tuku jam could lead to collaboration

GOSEGO MOTSUMI

Tomeletso Sereetsi, band leader of Sereetsi and The Natives is adamant that collaboration is possible after an electrifying impromptu performance alongside Zimbabwean legend, Oliver Mtukudzi at the Mascom Live Sessions this past weekend.
After he confessed to show revelers that there was “something special” about Seeretsi and The Natives, Mtukudzi invited the band to the stage for a brief jam session which turned out to be so good that murmurs of a possible collaboration started popping up.
Sereetsi himself expressed optimism  over the possibility of such a collaboration.  “I am positive that we will make it happen in good time. The song we performed was just a jam that we improvised live on stage. Hopefully we will work on the idea and make it a song or work on something totally new,” he told Time Out.
Efforts to get a comment from Mtukudzi were unsuccessful after the showand he took an early morning fight back to his base the following day.
The highlight of the night was, perhaps, when Sereetsi and The Natives performed of a medley of Tswana folk songs popularized by Radio Botswana’s Dipina Le Maboko show. He performed such classics as Setampore’s Ke Go Saenetse, O Gakatsa Macheri and Tonki E Tla Go Rambaza among others.
“I was giving them credit for paving the way for us. We are where we are because of the great work they put in generations when music was far from being seen as a viable career choice,” Sereetsi said.
To give the show a fresh feel, Sereetsi and The Natives performed a new unreleased song called Maobenka which was received well by the crowd. Maobenka is a fun love song according to Sereetsi, which tells the story of a man who tells his parents that he no longer visits the village because he is in love with a girl in the city and that it’s not like he is in love with the city but the girl living there.
Mtukudzi himself was at his immaculate best, invoking nostalgia with the Botswana Craft crowd’s favorite, Neria, among other songs. At the centre of Tuku’s message in song, was messages about such as issues as infidelity, AIDS and social strife.