1. Each time I listen to your Music I can’t help wondering if you’re at the cutting edge of your own style, or if your music does subscribe to a specific genre with which I’m not (yet) very familiar. Can you say something about that?
I subscribe to different genres of music and the spoken word and each one has an impact on my music and pieces. I create my music based on the timelessness of the message, the harmony that bonds it to the melody that speaks directly to the conscience. What to call that fusion is also beyond my grasp at the moment.
2. How do you compose a song? Is the experience different every time, or is there a well-honed, well-oiled procedure?
I never really set out to compose a song or a poem for that matter. There always has to be an occurrence that sparks the need to put pen to paper. This usually happens when I find myself emotionally attached to the event so much that I am rendered speechless, save to write it down.
3. Your tunes, Eseng ka rona and Setšoana, have a lilting, mesmeric sound to them, even though they’re as different in everything else as any two things could be. How do you want your music to make the listener feel?
My songs are reflections of my conviction, which is something I hold in deep respect and regard. I want the listener to experience the very same depth and to own it because I believe that is the only way one would get to feel the rhythm behind the music and experience the beat of my soul.
4. Setšoana is sung in 3 different languages. Why?
Setšoana is my first self-love poem and means “black beauty”. I wanted to express that love in all the languages that gave birth to me, to honour them as much as I have grown to love myself. I wanted to go beyond my usual boundaries and really capture the spirit of the African woman beyond the colour of her skin.
5. When can we look forward to downloading and/or holding your album in our hands?
It is too early in the creative stage for me to gauge when my album will be complete but I can tell you now that we are 5 tracks into it. Won’t be long now but I will definitely keep you posted as and when events fall into place that will expedite its completion. Early 2019 is a tentative date penned in my calendar. For now, am just enjoying being a mom.
Born in Zimbabwe but based in Lesotho for over 20 years now, Siphiwe has been an avid activist using her poetry to stimulate the masses with inspiring poems about human rights for over 10 years. She spent 5 years from 1994 in Brussels, Belgium where she was introduced to writing as a form of self expression to conquer her demons and in so doing, the poet was born. She attended schools in Lesotho and Belgium and did her B.A Drama degree at the University of the Free State in South Africa.
Her work is an infusion of spoken word, African melodies and traditional sounds. Her passion for the preservation of the African child has seen her do poems on human rights, domestic violence and child abuse and has since become a voice of reason for those afraid to speak up and for those who share her passion to stand up against prejudice, violence and abuse.
Siphiwe was nominated for an award for best female entertainer (FINITE Magazine Women Appreciation Awards) 2014, won Best R’n’B album award for Ultimate Radio Music awards -2014 and her work has been featured in the 2015 Pan-African Jalada Anthology publication (http://jalada.org/2015/09/15/jalada-04-the-language-issue/ representing Lesotho.
Listen to "Eseng ka rona"
Listen to "Setšoana"
| Siphiwe Nzima-Ntšekhe |
