Puseletso Seema (born 1949 in Johannesburg) is a musician and performer of the Famo musical tradition in Lesotho. She has been acclaimed as the Queen of Famo. [1]
Puseletso Seema was born in 1949 in a district of Johannesburg, South Africa. Her mother was a servant and she was brought up by her aunt who made her tend to their cattle. A self-trained singer, she began to compose her songs while minding the cows. Social convention looked down on women singers and she received no family support.
Raped and forced to marry the assailant, she moved to Mahobong (in present-day Lesotho) where she had three children, two of whom died in infancy. When her husband died in 1970, she was kicked out by her in-laws and returned to New Claire. Facing renewed hostility from her natal family, she started working as a food and drinks vendor at the local mines and joined a criminal gang. During this period, she continued to write songs and performing with a troupe Tau ea Linare. [2] [3]
Puseletso Seema performed her music at the mines, and excelled at dance where she wielded a fighting stick. [1] She specialised in the accordion, the main instrument of the Famo, and earned most of her livelihood from live performances in mining camps. She began to travel around the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, where bosses of camp gangs vied for her attention and often kidnapped her to perform for them. [4] In 1980, Seema and her band recorded an album in Johannesburg. Her song in memory of a dead brother became a hit, and she gained entry into the otherwise male-dominated Famo scene. [2]
Puseletso Seema released at least 32 albums. Her songs were scripted from her life experiences, her marriages and their failure. Meanwhile, Famo itself has become a cause of criminal strife in Lesotho, with rival gangs gunning down performers, and the previously gentle lyrics becoming increasingly violent. Puseletso Seema was robbed several times of her possessions, including the traditional accordion that is emblematic of the music. [1] She also has a long-standing quarrel with the musical industry who, she claimed, cheated her and her fellow performers out of their prize winnings and royalties. Her hit song Mofata Seliba inveighed against people who enriched themselves from her talent. [2] In 2020, she wrote a song on the theme of Covid-19 sponsored by the Lesotho National Coronavirus Secretariat, but once again she said she wasn't paid for her work. [5]
Puseletso Seema's performances tended to be live with minimal staging, featuring extended solos and themes. Performing on television, however, forced her and other Famo musicians to shorten their solos, and each song became more focussed on one theme, rather than the amalgamation of thoughts familiar from live productions. [6]
Zakes Mda's novel Wayfarers' Hymns features Puseletso Seema. [7]
Lesotho, formally the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. As an enclave of South Africa, with which it shares a 1,106 km (687 mi) border, it is the only sovereign enclave in the world outside of the Italian Peninsula. It is situated in the Maloti Mountains and contains the highest peak in Southern Africa. It has an area of over 30,000 km2 (11,600 sq mi) and has a population of about two million. It is the largest enclaved country in the world. Its capital and largest city is Maseru. The country is also known by the nickname The Mountain Kingdom.
The economy of Lesotho is based on agriculture, livestock, manufacturing, mining, and depends heavily on inflows of workers’ remittances and receipts from the Southern African Customs Union (SACU). Lesotho is geographically surrounded by South Africa and is economically integrated with it as well. The majority of households subsist on farming. The formal sector employment consist of mainly female workers in the apparel sector, while male migrant laborers work primarily either as miners in South Africa for 3 to 9 months or in the employment of the Government of Lesotho (GOL). Half of the country's population work in informal crop cultivation or animal husbandry.
The Sotho, also known as the Basotho, are a prominent Sotho-Tswana ethnic group native to Southern Africa. They primarily inhabit the regions of Lesotho and South Africa.
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Lesotho is a Southern African nation surrounded entirely by South Africa. The largest ethnic group is the Basotho. The Basotho culture is immersed in musical traditions.
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Famo is a type of music from the African country of Lesotho, consisting of singing accompanied by the accordion, a drum, and occasionally a bass. It originated in the drinking dens of migrant workers relaxing after working in mines in the 1920s and is now a popular form of music for Sesotho speakers.
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Sesotho poetry is a form of artistic expression using the written and spoken word practiced by the Basotho people in Southern Africa. Written poetry in the Sesotho language has existed for over 150 years however, the oral poetry has been practiced throughout Basotho history.
Joshua Pulumo Mohapeloa (1908-1982) was a prominent choral music composer in Sesotho, the native language of the BaSotho people of Southern Africa.
Teboho Mochaoa, known commonly by his stage name Morena Leraba is a Lesotho-born singer and rapper. He mainly uses traditional sesotho lyrics and combines them with electro, afro house and Hip hop. His lyrics are deeply rooted in Lesotho's traditional music, poetry, and its sub-genre, famo.
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