Botswana: Dikobe Ventures Into the Men's Terrain

Botswana: Dikobe Ventures Into the Men's Terrain

She is the first to admit that competition in the local music industry is a dogfight. For a woman singer like herself it is even harder. Except for one or two women singers in the traditional music category, the women folk find it hard to penetrate the market. Gaborone singer, Hellen Dikobe, has decided to try her luck with a late December release.

Botswana: Dikobe Ventures Into the Men's Terrain

Mmegi/The Reporter (Gaborone)

December 21, 2006
Posted to the web December 22, 2006

Monkagedi Gaotlhobogwe
GaboroneShe is the first to admit that competition in the local music industry is a dogfight. For a woman singer like herself it is even harder. Except for one or two women singers in the traditional music category, the women folk find it hard to penetrate the market. Gaborone singer, Hellen Dikobe, has decided to try her luck with a late December release.

Her posters decorate the city as they advertise her self-sponsored debut album, Black Woman. From her appearance on the posters, with bangles on her arms, Afro necklaces hanging down her neck, huge African inspired earrings, and dread locks, the picture of something jazzy quickly springs up in your mind; you would easily mistake Dikobe's album for a jazz or soul album. She believes she can fit well in the Afro-jazz category if she wanted to.

Although her album is a unique mixture of soulful kwaito sounds on rave instrumentals, Dikobe says she started off her music career singing soulful music in local hotels and at corporate events. For a long time she was part of Clement Jackson's crew whose main business was to perform at hotels and corporate shows.

Her soulful touch was taken to another level when she was featured on a number of tracks when Clement Jackson and sons released their music album in 2002. But the 26-year-old Mabalane- born musician perceives herself as a versatile singer who can also fit in kwaito, house and pop genres. In fact, she has featured in two kwaito and House albums by Ouza and Acid before.

 In her solo project, Dikobe experiments with sounds that are not common. She says she just wants to be recognised as a unique musician. "I did not want to go for kwaito kwasa instrumentals. I am not gong to adopt it in the future, every body is into it these days," she said. Dikobe said the main objective here is to showcase her singing talent. She has not featured any other musician

'I want people to judge my product by my vocals. I wanted to show what I can do on my own, my singing talent," she explained. What impact does she hope to make on the local scene with the album? Dikobe sees her project as more like a work of art than a commercial item.

"So far, it is not all about the sales. It is about showing off the talent really," she said. "If the sales soar in the process, it would be a bonus. For now, I am fighting to have my musical identity recognised, especially the uniqueness of my talent."