A person performs an accordion as individuals collect at an area tavern, often known as shabeen, in Semonkong.
MARCO LONGARI/AFP
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MARCO LONGARI/AFP
MASERU, Lesotho — Puseletso Seema is musical royalty within the tiny African mountain kingdom of Lesotho, the place she’s referred to as “the Queen of Famo” -– a preferred style of pastoral accordion music beloved by the nation’s individuals, the Basotho.
However for all her fame, she by no means obtained wealthy, and the 77-year-old grandmother’s dwelling circumstances today are removed from regal.
She resides in a small, run-down residence alongside a dusty street within the rural areas exterior the capital, the place small boys trip donkeys beneath the shadows of the mountains, and shepherds wrapped in colourful, patterned blankets watch over flocks of sheep.
It is winter, with strikingly clear blue skies and snow on the distant mountain peaks. Seema would not have cash for electrical energy and isn’t nicely, coughing so much as she reminisces about changing into the primary girl to interrupt right into a music trade that was as soon as strictly the protect of males.
Puseletso Seema, identified in Lesotho because the ‘Queen of Famo,’ throughout an interview at her residence.
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Kate Bartlett/NPR
“Famo music is a music that’s like jazz in different international locations, it is the style most identified in Lesotho,” she explains. “It is a music that’s emotionally related, you may specific your happiness, unhappiness, all of your emotions.”
Journalist Motsamai Mokotjo, who has written on the subject, explains famo this fashion: “In essence it is engraved in people regulation, you recognize, it is poetry fused with the accordion.”
“It speaks to the historical past of Basotho and all the pieces that is occurring within the nation. It is extra like what individuals in America would say is hip hop, it is a type of expression,” he provides.
Wayfarers’ Hymns
Lesotho is without doubt one of the world’s poorest international locations, and Seema grew up with little or no. She had no education and was put to work by her household as a toddler taking care of the livestock. Normally it was boys who labored as shepherds, however Seema’s dad and mom did not have a son. Nonetheless, she held her personal.
“After I was within the fields I might typically combat with a few of the herdboys,” she laughs. “And I began singing this music once I was a shepherd.”
Famo began as a rural music amongst Lesotho’s shepherds, however migrated to the city areas together with the Basotho who went to work in South Africa’s mines within the twentieth century.
A busking famo musician on the streets of Maseru, Lesotho.
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“It was there the place they have been launched to an accordion,” says Mpho Malikeng, a Maseru musician and artist who’s an knowledgeable on famo. “That’s the main instrument of famo music.”
Lesotho is totally surrounded by South Africa, whose mineral wealth and huge gold deposits made it a middle of mining for many years. After a protracted day down the shafts, mineworkers would collect at rowdy makeshift pubs known as shebeens, and play famo.
Seema, too, went to attempt to make her fortune in Johannesburg, typically dubbed “egoli” or the town of gold. Not as a miner, however a performer for the miners – simply as when she was a herder, a girl getting into a person’s world.
Portrait of an area shepherd along with his canine wrapped in a blanket within the mountains of Lesotho, Africa.
Edwin Remsberg/Common Photographs Group Editorial
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Edwin Remsberg/Common Photographs Group Editorial
“I am the primary girl to provide famo music,” she says. “As a result of that music was identified for males to sing it and for ladies to bop to it, flicking up their skirts, after they went to shebeens.”
Authorities Ban
Famo has modified so much since Seema’s day. Today, it is change into inextricably related to gang violence.
Whereas there aren’t any actual statistics on what number of lives have been misplaced to famo-related violence, it’s unhealthy sufficient that final yr the Lesotho authorities launched a crackdown, banning some teams totally in addition to prohibiting media from reporting on the gang wars.
“There are disturbing problems with murders happening today. Our households, kinfolk and mates are killed by these Famo gangs,” stated diamond magnate Prime Minister Sam Matekane final yr.
“As the federal government now we have launched a gazette that signifies that these teams or these individuals, wherever they’re, they need to be referred to as terrorists,” he added.
Lesotho’s businessman-turned-politician Sam Matekane speaks throughout a information convention in Maseru, Lesotho.
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Silence Charumbira/AP
The federal government launched the crackdown after a spate of famo revenge killings in 2024. In a single, in April, 5 members of the identical household have been killed. In July, famo star Khopolo Kholue, was gunned down alongside an area journalist investigating the gang wars.
Mpho Malikeng , a musician and cultural activist from Lesotho, says the violence all comes all the way down to famo musicians buying and selling barbed insults of their track lyrics – and the antipathy then turns to actual violence.
“It is like a rap battle, so you must diss your fellow battler, by dissing them, you make them provide you with higher verses, they usually’re additionally dissing you again,” he says.
Like a Rap Beef
He likens the state of affairs to the East coast-West coast rivalry between hip hop teams in Nineties Los Angeles, that resulted within the murders of Tupac Shakur and the Infamous B.I.G.
There’s additionally friction over turf, he provides, explaining: “You can’t be in a sure space listening to so-and so …. It might even value you your life.”
Nevertheless he says he thinks the federal government has gone too far with the bans, particularly as some politicians and members of the safety forces are themselves alleged to be concerned with Famo gangs.
“It has even infiltrated into the political panorama of the nation, the politicians use all this to attempt to garner help for electioneering,” he says.
Prime Minister Matekane has admitted some members of the police are concerned with famo gangs, saying: “Now we have discovered as the federal government that some members of the safety companies are on the entrance row in these famo gangs. I attraction to them to give up that factor and do what they’re employed to do.”
NPR phoned police minister Lebona Lephema for touch upon the crackdown, however he declined to remark and hung up.
Regardless of having a inhabitants of solely 2.3 million, Lesotho has excessive homicide charges and unlawful firearms are rife. The gang violence has additionally spilled into neighboring South Africa.
Famo music remains to be common amongst unlawful miners there, who danger their lives exploring disused mine shafts to eke out a dwelling. Lots of them are Basotho, and are referred to as “zama zamas,” or “those that take an opportunity.” A few of them are engaged in gang violence too.
“Queen of Famo,” Seema, would not wish to touch upon the gang wars which have change into a part of the music tradition. However she’s going to say: “I do not like music that’s vulgar or insulting or insinuating any hate.”
