Growing up in a home full of women who love music, she doesn’t remember a time when they were not in the kitchen washing dishes while singing along to music from the radio.
Her aunts and sisters introduced her to artists such as Miriam Makeba, Dolly Rathebe, Brenda Fassie and other women who used music to bring change, entertain, and set trends.
While singing along whilst doing chores, it never occurs to her that she will one day spend more time in the studio writing and recording music just like those musical icons.
The Botswana-born and -bred songstress, Mpho Sebina, is now on a mission to own her words and boldly write more about love. Closing the month of love, she is in Gauteng and has been serenading fans with her new music. Her third upcoming album, due to be released this year, is titled ‘ALKEBULAN’, featuring female artists from different parts of the continent.
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The first project she released was in 2020 during Covid, she was locked down with studio equipment and had all the time in the world. She then put together her album, titled LORA, that started when one of her family members heard her sing during the session.
“After one of my aunts told me I could sing it was always at the back of my mind. But I never thought of doing anything about it. Knowing that I started approaching music differently, but when I grew up, I didn’t know anyone who studied music or pursued music professionally. I went to varsity and studied International Business. I have an honours degree, and I started my career but the love for music was always there. When I started working, I would frequently go to the studio, and I was privileged enough for my parents to allow me to quit my job and pursue music”.
Giving all her energy to music, in 2017 she released her first album. She was nervous because she had gone from living comfortably to now having to put herself out there as an independent artist.
“It was very scary putting myself out there artistically, and I was very sensitive. Now I have grown and put more music out. The journey comes with a lot of challenges, and I try to take care of my mental health. I focus on doing it for the love and diversifying myself as an entrepreneur because I don’t want to put so much pressure on the music that it becomes a painful space for me.”
Speaking to Drum ahead of her intimate performances planned from 18 to 25 February, an excited Mpho said it was an opportunity for fans to preview her upcoming album which is a collaborative project.
“I featured female artists from across the continent in this project because I was inspired by the different sounds of the continent," she says.
"I wanted to celebrate women and celebrate our Africanness through music. I am aware that such projects are done in August, this project came together after I went to the studio to a producer that I always wanted to work with. He sent me some music, I recorded it. His response was that’s not how women speak, and this is not what women should be saying and it made me angry.”
From her anger, she thought about what would make the producer think he can tell her what she can or cannot say as a woman. That is when she thought of a project that only features women because she loves being a woman.
“The producer was reacting to a love song that was romanticising a man. It was a very sexy song, expressing love and passion but it was not even on the nose, it was expressing that we are sexual beings too, but I don’t think the world is ready to hear us expressing that. Although some women boldly do it, in the African context it seems to be taboo still.”
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She says she has never done a passionate love song before and that is why she wanted to express that side of her.
“The best description of love is in the biblical sense, because it gives the good and bad qualities. That is why I love that description. That is why I am in Joburg in the month of love. I love love, and I love to express it in different forms.
“Whether it is a romantic kind of love for a significant other or about self-love. A lot of my music is about loving yourself and overcoming. We go through a lot of things as people, black people, and black women, and I’d like to make songs about overcoming. I hardly have romantic love songs they are about three, other songs are always looking for a source of love that is bigger than us and not just in the romantic sense.”
