BHOLOJA, STEWART COLLABONATION SONG OUT

MBABANE – MTN Bushfire is excited to announce the official track release of the 2024 CollaboNation song ‘Mother’ by Mozambique’s Stewart Sukuma and Eswatini’s Bholoja Ngubane.

The song is out now and available for listening and download on all digital music platforms. Both social commentary and source of hope, ‘Mother’ is honest, pure and powerful. It is a song inspired by the crucial need to address one of the burning issues in our society: Gender-based violence (GBV). CollaboNation is an annual MTN Bushfire arts development project supported by MTN Eswatini and produced by Bushfire Records. After a month-long CollaboNation call-out process that saw 182 applications from more than 15 African countries as far as Cape Verde, Ethiopia, Kenya and Cameroon, as well as the southern African region, the legendary Sukuma and the King of Eswatini Soul, Bholoja were selected.

Moving

They met for the first time at the recording studio in Maputo, Mozambique, created this deeply moving song and then performed it at the MTN Bushfire international festival of music and the arts in May.  CollaboNation artists are selected in line with MTN Bushfire’s clarion call to action, Bring Your Fire, which encourages the proactive contribution of the individual towards addressing burning social and environmental issues. CollaboNation is a powerful platform for creative advocacy. “CollaboNation connects and unites the continent through a series of unique cross-border and cross-genre music collaborations, weaving together Africa’s rich and diverse musical genres, to create a game-changing creative narrative and inspire social cohesion in an increasingly divided world,” said MTN Bushfire Director Jiggs Thorne.

He also pointed out that CollaboNation is designed to extend the reach of African artists by cross-pollinating fan bases and linking them with new markets, media, promoters and other industry professionals in different countries. Supporting African artists in developing their brands is a key goal of the CollaboNation project, which aims to grow the continent’s creative economy. CollaboNation was founded in 2022, with a generous grant from the Sound Connects Fund, implemented by the Music in Africa Foundation. The Sounds Connect Fund was a European Union (EU)-funded initiative to support the arts in Africa, the Pacific and the Caribbean. EU Ambassador to Eswatini Dessislava Choumelova shared that they are proud of the project, citing that art plays a huge role in transforming society.

“We are proud with the results of the CollaboNation project, established with funding from the European Union. In Eswatini, we enjoy a strong and long-running partnership with MTN Bushfire, peaking each year in our EU Bushfire Schools Festival. Our partnership is founded in our mutual commitment to empowering youth, women, communities and citizens with socio-economic rights. GBV, in its different forms, is one of the gravest violations of human rights. Art has a big role to play in social transformation and can help build bridges and fight social evils. This song speaks directly to our hearts and educates the minds. As such, I am confident that the song will mobilise emaSwati and the region in the fight against gender-based violence,” she said.

Senior Human Rights Adviser to the United Nations in Eswatini Laila Nazarali says they welcome the launch of the new song and they hope it will amplify the call to action on GBV. “We hope the song will amplify the call to action on GBV, which is a scourge in the Southern African region, including Eswatini where, according to the Swatini Action Group Against Abuse (SWAGAA), about 48 per cent of all women report having experienced some form of sexual violence in their lifetime. Creative artists have a responsibility to use their voices to build coalitions to address GBV, generate resources, promote human rights and speak up for the voiceless,” she said.

Activist

A veteran arts activist, Sukuma echoed Nazarali’s words, citing that as citizens in a country, we have social responsibilities. “As an artist, as a musician, your responsibility grows as you have access to bigger crowds. The way men treat women in Mozambique is still very dubious and very violent and I think this song brings that subject up just to remind the people that our mothers, our sisters, they are part of us or the other way around, we are part of them. Without them, we wouldn’t exist,” he said.

For Bholoja, CollaboNation has fulfilled his desire to collaborate with a Mozambican artist. “Collabonation has been a dream come true, my wish to experience Eswatini sounds fused with Mozambican sounds came to reality. l am blessed to have collaborated with Stewart Sukuma, together advocating for women and against gender-based violence. We both saw that it was crucial for us to address this issue through a song,” he said, adding, “Unity is power. Through CollaboNation, MTN Bushfire have made it possible, and they have found a simple way of uniting Africans, of uniting musicians, to come together and speak one language,” Bholoja said.

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