NONO SIILE...

NONO SIILE’S MUSIC PROFILE

Afro Jazz star Nono Siile is in a league of the few in the Botswana music industry.  Since releasing her hit debut, Kgarebe in 2007, the lady has never known a flop.  Little wonder she is among the growing number of Botswana artists who are full-time working musicians.  “I have been very lucky.  Attendance at my shows has been very good.  People are very appreciative of my work.  Whenever I stage a show, calls can’t stop coming in.  I really appreciate their patronage’’, she says.

If you can’t help loving those back up vocal harmonies on Johwa’s records, blame it all on Nono.  Her voice has featured on all ikalanaga Jazz originator Ndingo Johwa’s albums.  Nono has been as much a part of the Botswana music recording landscape as all the household names that cater for discerning music heads who like their mix with a touch of jazz and that inmistakable organic live instrumentation feel.  She has also landed her vocal harmony skills to Lister Boleseng’s hit debut Life’s Journey.

She is also a hired gun on sensational Afro jazz singe Shanti Lo’s first record.  Her first introductionto the popular music format came via a stint in late Tswana pop legend Duncan Senyatso’s band.  “ Around 1997 Gomolemo Motswaledi (renowned Botswana choral composer and leader) approached me and Nnunu with the view to have us as part of Duncan Senyatso’s band  the rest is history”, she relates.  Nono kew she was destined for a life as a performer way back when as a girl she would frequently accompany her mother to Crime Prevention Committee Choir practice sessions.

By the time she was 12 years, she was a soloist in the church’s youth choir.    She then joined an act called Songbirds.  Before her historic meeting with Motswaledi that prepared her for her sojourn into the Afro jazz limelight, she became part of a musical group known as Bind Us Together.

“My music is inspired by life.  For instance a songs such as Nthekele Ring (Buy me a ring) talks about our lives as women: about our relationships with men”, she says.  Having made quite and impression in the Botswana live music circuit, she is now looking to beg more and more laudable accolades.  “I want to go on and win big awards.  I want to record more albums”, she states.

Talking of recording more albums, Nono promises a scorcher of a sophomore studio effort.  She has once again engaged the services of Gavin Bantom who produce her debut, Kgeleke.  “I liked his touch on the first record”, she says.  What’s new on the new record?

“There would be more brass and percussions.  I hope to also feature John Selolwane”, she says.  As for dream collaborations, Nono would like to work with South African Afro Pop sensation and Bongo Muffin leader Thandiswa Mazwai as will as Afro jazz star Zamajobe.  At home she is interested in joining forces on record with the first lady to release a jazz idiom.  We are close friends as well”, she says.  Interestingly, Ndingo Johwa is the only male to make it to her to-do-duets list.

“After all she is the man who made Nono”, she says, recalling her formative years as the backup singer for the husky voiced singer and guitarist.

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Phone: (+267) 72140196 / 7148099