Morena Leraba

Over the past nine years, Morena Leraba has become a globally acclaimed flagbearer of a

remodeled Lesotho sound manifested through a series of live performances, numerous high-wattage

collaborations and, due out in 2022, a debut EP recorded in Johannesburg.

Titled “Fela sa Ha Mojela” (song or poem of Ha Mojela) the much-anticipated recording captures

Morena Leraba’s ability to fuse traditional Famo-inspired vocals with electronic music, dub and

echoes of hip-hop, all part of creating an evolving sound that is psychedelic, entrancing and

future-facing.

Like earlier singles, including “Mpuli”, and “Impepho”, Fela sa Ha Mojela solidifies the dynamism

in the sound created (since 2014) by the shepherd Famo musician from Lesotho, born Teboho

Mochaoa. To the listener, the recorded music and Morena Leraba’s live shows present a transporting

and elevating experience that uses the vocal template of Famo to anchor electronic music that draws

as instinctively on the warm, low notes of the marimba as dub’s stretched-out rhythms – and much

more.

A sub-genre of Sesotho traditional music or poetry, Famo is famous in Morena Leraba’s home

district of Mafeteng (south of Lesotho capital’s Maseru). “I understand Famo,” says Morena Leraba.

“However, because we also have influences from elsewhere musically, I’ve always re-imagined

Famo. I’ve always re-imagined Sesotho traditional music. So, coming to Johannesburg and meeting

all the musicians that contributed to our journey so far, was the manifestation, perhaps, of that

re-imagination.”

The musicians who’ve helped Morena Leraba create Fela sa Ha Mojela and take his sound to the

world are Steve Hogg (alias Vox Portent; founding member of Seru), Johannesburg-based electronic

music producer, Thamsanqa Ngwenya, Johannesburg-based musician on marimba, Bronwen

Clacherty on percussions and Molefi Makananise (founding member of BLK JKS) on bass.

Together they offer up a celebration of the shepherd's charisma through stories that touch on the

village but that also reflect Morena Leraba’s more recent experiences – both (and especially) his time

in Johannesburg, and his travels abroad. The stories told on Fela sa Ha Mojela are nourished by

accounts of other Basotho migrant workers that Morena Leraba normally commutes with. “These are

stories of migration. Labour in the informal sector. Johannesburg and its hardships. Hope. Finding

strength and courage. Spiritual calling. Death and having to live with the memory of loved ones.”

In recent months, Morena Leraba has played a slate of live dates including a successful 2021

European tour which took in Dijon, Paris, and Berlin, among other cities, and a number of shows

during the 2022 Investec Cape Town Art Fair and another five in Cape Town and Stellenbosch in

March this year. Up next is a series of European shows, starting with Fusion Festival 2022 in

Germany.

These live shows add to a host of acclaimed performances over the years, including at the

Commonwealth Games Festival (Australia), Endless Daze in Cape Town, Festival Rituel and Trans

Musicales in Rennes, France, Bushfire Festival in e’Swatini (formerly Swaziland), Sentebale AUDI

Concert in London, Oslo World Festival in Norway and AFROPUNK in Johannesburg.

Since surfacing, Morena Leraba has also been an in-demand collaborator with a recent highlight

being Major Lazer’s 2021 album Music is the Weapon (Reloaded) where he was featured on the

fired-up, club-ready track “Hands Up” alongside Moonchild Sanelly. London-based collective

ONIPA sought out Morena Leraba for the track “Free Up” - featuring Syntax and Spoek Mathambo -

off the 2020 album We No Be Machine and his voice also provides the spiritual roots for

“Johannesburg”, which was the first single off Damon Albarn’s Africa Express 2019 record, EGOLI

– a song that features Sibot, Radio 123, and Gruff Rhys (Super Furry Animals). A standout

collaboration has been with South Africa’s BLK JKS on their late 2019 single “Harare” where, in a

display of his musical gifts, Leraba contributed both vocals and lyrics to the track. The lyrics came

naturally,” says Leraba of the song. “The whole migration thing, people tell you what they go

through working in South Africa without proper documentation. It is a big topic in the famo scene.”

Much of the mystique surrounding Leraba stems from his roots in Lesotho, a mountainous country

that is enclosed within South Africa. Like most of his countrymen, he spent much of his youth as a

shepherd (in the village of Matholeng, Mafeteng), taking inspiration from the solitude that tending

animals brings. For Leraba, retaining deeply-sunk roots in Lesotho is more than sentimentality: it’s

the stuff of his creative life. “These are memories of old and here lies our strange truths - stories from

our grandmothers, of underworld waters, villages and other-worldly beings - and you have seen this

before (arcane ways of our people). Our futurism - old riddles have become new.”

Alongside BLK JKS (who have also featured him as a guest during live performances over the past

few years), Spoek Mathambo has also championed Leraba’s talent and, in 2017, he played Banlieues

Bleues Jazz Festival - Paris as Mathambo’s guest artist. Since then Morena Leraba has proved to be

in possession of one of the most exciting and expansive artistic visions of recent years, driven, says

the remarkable artist, by the need to reflect in music nothing less than “… our other-worldly

journeys—our spiritual transcendence”.