Mimie Brings Out Her Dream To Reality
She started to develop a fond in music at a tender age and joined the Sunday school praise and worship team back then where she would present musical items at Church whenever there’s a special occasion, glorifying the Almighty with her voice. Time passed, she went to junior school where she joined an acapella group led by Mr Mosweu and they performed whenever there was a special event in Jwaneng.
According to Amantle Michellin Moumakwa aka Mimie, at her home no one believed that indeed she was gifted. Taking it back to the days she said, “I remember leading this other song at the June 16 event (Day of the African Child) when we were at the multipurpose hall in Jwaneng. My mom was part of the crowd and she was shocked to see me, you know Batswana ‘Mmagwe ngwana yo o kae a sa letse mogolokwane’…hahaha”. She said at senior school she was so obsessed with singing so she joined the School Choir and mind you, by that time she was part of the youth praise team at Church.
In 2018 Mimie went to the University of Botswana to do Computing with Finance but the inner part of her wanted to study music. Her senior school colleagues who also liked music and used to do acapella with her like; Jazzlyn Tiah, Thorne David Tlhabiwe, and Ntlame entered the music world she wanted to and did the same but she hesitated as her parents wouldn’t allow it. When she was in the second year, Jazzlyn Tiah asked her for a collabo, he gave her a beat and she wrote the song ”Colour Box” he scheduled the recording session with Dada Kavino and upon hearing that the song they recorded wasn’t bad. She made her mind that she is becoming an artist. She didn’t tell her parents and in March 2020 Mimie released her first single titled ”O ile”. Her music is an Afro-pop genre.
Responding on the question about how Covid affected his music career, Mimie said she dropped her first single on March 13th, last year and a few days after that came the national lock-down, strictly no movement as the industry was shut down and she couldn’t even promote her song enough. She couldn’t go to radios and she was just a beginner who didn’t know what to do with the song.
It worsened the matters because she couldn’t meet people who were willing to help her with things that concerned her music. She also said she had a few songs that were ready so she just released haphazardly without a plan more so that she didn’t have a manager. Therefore she never got the chance to benefit financially from her projects. Mimie got booked for a show on December at Molepolole and it was cancelled a week before its actual date because of the curfew.
When describing her development ever since she joined the music industry, Mimie said, “I’m growing, for a person who just started music last year with all the challenges of Covid-19 I would say I’m developing and its promising that surely they’ll be a spark at the end of the tunnel more so that now people are approaching me wanting collaborations, and some wanting to manage me, so its promising”.
She added by saying what she enjoys about being a musician is that she pours out her heart in songs, she gets to be creative as she writes, and that on its own is fun. Mimie also said she interacts with people here and there, travels to shoot videos and for an adventurous person like her, being a musician is fun. But she hates the judgement that she gets from friends and family members.
She mentioned that in most cases people associate artists with all the immoral acts, so once you become an artist you face a lot of criticism “Batho ba simolla go batla gore o tshele jaaka bone ba batla, ha nne o tshwana le Mimie o tsena kereke ba simolla go feel gore you are a hypocrite kind of…”
Comparing the local music industry with that of other countries, she said music industry in Botswana is poor, not because we’re lacking talent just that it seems like people don’t see music as something that can boost the economy.
Advice to the aspiring musicians, “I would say follow your heart and take risks for what you love, don’t wait to do what you love until it’s late”.
Duncan Sebeso