After 60 years in the music industry, legendary Famo musician Puseletso Seema also known as ‘Mme Mpuse’, is sad, isolated and disillusioned.
She regrets that she is no longer benefiting from her music career in Lesotho.
Mme Mpuse is a self-trained singer who started composing songs while tending cattle at the age of 16. Her famous tracks include Mme Mamohato, Basali ba ntlhoile keng, Kea ikokobetsa and the most recent one, ‘Namolele where she was featured by Juvy Oa Lepimpara.
Apart from that, Mpuse has been known for hosting events like ‘Pitiki’ where she empowers newly married women.
It is a fun-filled activity that encompasses singing and traditional Basotho women’s dances. The event is also considered a safe space for women to find counsel, to have conversations about the different passages of women in marriage or after giving birth, to restore them.
In an interview with theReporter this week, Mme Mpuse lamented that she is now neglected by event organisers and those in authority who no longer book her to perform at events, both private and state.
Mme Mpuse says that she was the first woman to sing Famo music in Lesotho, which at the time was referred to as ‘music for immodest women’.
She continued singing Famo music and worked hard to give it all her best despite people’s opinions, because she loved it.
“I no longer get invitations to perform at the country’s big events; it’s been three years now. I don’t really know what’s the cause of this. This has affected my financial well-being because music is my only source of income.
“I still release music. I have put Lesotho on the map. Therefore, if those in authority have decided to ignore me, there is nothing I can say because nothing will change their hearts,” Mpuse said.
Although she introduced ‘Pitiki’ with the aim of empowering other women, she claims she is now hated by those women that she has taught; they speak ill of her and even snub her.
Mpuse appealed to Basotho to have mercy on her as she is now old and no longer has the energy to engage in income generating activities such as brewing and selling Sesotho beer and food, like she did before.
“I still have enough energy to perform on stage. I’m into culture and Famo but I’ve been sidelined. Only the lucky ones get selected to perform at celebrations like the Basotho Bicentenary.
“If only they can be kind enough and invite me to produce a song commemorating this 200 years’ celebration,” Mpuse noted.
Seema was born in 1949 in Johannesburg. Her mother was a domestic worker and she was brought up by her aunt who made her tend to their cattle. Social convention looked down on women singers and she received no family support.
Raped and forced to marry the assailant, she moved to Mahobong, Leribe 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 maternal family, she started working as a food and drinks vendor at local mines and joined a criminal gang. During this period, she continued to write songs and perform with a troupe called Tau ea Linare.
Mpuse performed her music at the mines, and excelled at dance wielding a fighting stick. 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.
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.
She has released at least 32 albums; her songs were scripted from her life experiences, as well as her marriages and their failure.
