Botswana: Versatile Mogojwa Releases Second Gospel Album

 

Botswana: Versatile Mogojwa Releases Second Gospel Album

Mmegi/The Reporter (Gaborone)

COLUMN
February 7, 2007
Posted to the web February 7, 2007

Maureen Odubeng

She is young, vibrant, and, through her gospel music, is determined to share the joy and happiness she found in the Lord with the rest of the world.

While her popularity has not reached its highest yet, her immense talent in music cannot be ignored either.

She is Maureen Thato Mogojwa, the young woman who has had an undying love for music since childhood.

Mogojwa started involvement in music at the age of five but, at the time, she was fascinated more by traditional singing and dancing.

She explained that she grew up with an immense love for traditional music and started dancing for different schools even before she started her standard one.

Mogojwa explained that her talent was not just in dancing but, she said, while she sang and danced, she was also good at mogolokwane (ululations) and, for that, she would always be invited to adding the spice of mogolokwane at gatherings to give the dancers encouragement.

Like a number of Batswana children, Mogowa was very active in the traditional music popularly known as borankana, which led to her being a member of Ditshephe, the then popular Gaborone Senior Secondary School traditional group. Mogojwa did not only participate in Borankana related activities, she also enrolled as amember of the Scripture Union (SU), a popular worship group common in schools, especially government schools.

Not only did she groom herself through participation in school music, Mogowa was also an active member of the Seventh Day Adventist. She participated in different choirs inside her church. Upon completing form five, she told Showbiz, she had to choose between concentrating on Borankana or singing gospel, the two passions that she had given equal attention to. She chose to develop herself as a gospel singer and participated in a number of church choirs before deciding to go solo and record. She has sung for the popular Seventh Day Adventist Church choir, Hebrews 11 and Harmony 4, which released its first album in 1999.

Mogojwa told Showbiz that she was one of the lead singers for the group, which still enjoys air-play on some of the local radio gospel programmes.

On her part, she released her first, titled Ke Ntse Dinaong, in September 2004. Mogojwa does not restrict herself to singing only; she also writes most of her music, save for a few songs that she borrows from her church's hymnbook.

Her first album has eight tracks, which include the title track, Ke Ntse Dinaong, Jeso Mmoloki, Lead me to Calvary, Mama, Carry On, Ba Mo Tlhabo (a song which she says was written for her by her grandmother), and I Will Come Again and Lead Me.

While Mogojwa admitted that she has not aggressively marketed herself as a gospel singer, she told Showbiz that she had sold a fairly good number of CDs and has to cut more copies.

After almost two years, Mogojwa released another gospel album, titled Bua Moyeng Wame Jeso, which came out this past December and is yet to be launched. She also dedicated one of the songs to her late mother who she said gave her enormous support in her music.

The 10-track album contains three songs that were borrowed from the Seventh Day Adventist Church, with the rest of the songs being her own compositions.

She related that for the most part, she normally does not sit around agonizing about her song lyrics.

"My ideas come to me in different ways," she said. "One of the songs, Through Every Moment, came from a text message from a friend who was comforting me after my mother's passing."

Other songs in the album include Ke rekololotswe kea bolela, May I be like you, We'll build on the rock, By himself, Mmabaledi, Ke a dumela, Ga rena kgaogano, and Ke letsatsi la lenyalo.

Mogojwa said, apart from her mother, she has also received ample support from gospel singers Kealeboga Tlhabiwe and Ivy Oweditse Salim, currently stationed in the United Kingdom.