Charmagal eclipses Mogwe�s lukewarm release with monster hit

Monkagedi Gaothobogwe | Thursday July 23, 2015 18:00

 

Charmagal

Mogwe, unable to take things lying down, reacted very quickly to douse the fires and prove a point or two with his own solo release, or shall we say a Culture Spears Release. It hardly looks like a typical Culture Spears release, or sounded like one.

Culture Spears fans, used to sampling an array of vocal talent whenever the group made a release, will now have to brave the vocals of only Mogwe throughout the album.

He clutches at straws to prove to all and sundry that the group is not dead, perhaps until he is gone. 

For the first time, there is no that velvet female lead voice of Magdelene Lesolebe aka Charmagal. This, after another long time prominent vocalist Thembeni Ramosetheng went missing in the group’s last release, Kulanche, which featured just Mogwe and Magdelene, when they were still marital partners.

For the first time, a Culture Spears album cover bears the picture of only one band member, if we do not count an adjacent donkey.

The ass features prominently in the album, as a subject of one of his tracks. With   founding members Jelina Mokgwatlheng, Thembeni Ramosetheng, and lately Lesolebe, all gone, Kabelo Mogwe has chosen to cling to the Culture Spears brand. The irony is, Mogwe chose to release a new album in the midst of the worst moment of his and the group’s. Conversely the new album, titled Kokomochane, celebrates Culture Spears’ 10th anniversary. 

Talk of seeing a glass, as half full than half empty, for to some this is not a celebration of a decade by Culture Spears, it is the end of that decade of Culture Spears.

It is a low-key anniversary, if any. It is not featuring any array of local music giants to go with the sub-theme of 10th Anniversary emblazoned on the album cover.

Mogwe features an unlikely companion, a hip-hop star in one of the tracks, Mogwana.

There is no doubt the pain in the flesh remains the fire Mogwe is trying so frantically douse-a conflagration embodied by Charmagal’s very popular album that is blaring from every corner at the moment.

As a group, Culture Spears have now reached the same gloomy destiny as the once famous Mokorwana Cultural group, which used to boast of a rainbow of local music talent.  Today Mokorwana is a small one-man entity by the name of Radikgang Madiane, the founder.