The version we are receiving in this interview is a whole new identity.
Bokang Ramatlapeng wanted to announce her new chapter as a mother on her own terms. Understandably so, the lines are sometimes so thin in terms of what's social and what's personal as an artist where their audiences are concerned.
Bokang Ramatlapeng still showing up for our conversation whilst her two month infant was sick was telling of the intersections that motherhood comes with, especially in this economy. Especially in the creative industry and what it asks of one.
Nevertheless, she committed to being archived, to thought, to conversation and allowing herself to be seen as she expands. She is now not only Bokang Ramatlapeng, the sister, musician, partner, daughter. Bokang Ramatlapeng is MOTHER.
Walk through our conversation here and learn about the multiple layers that make the Qalo creator, reflections on her album finally being shared and the kind of artist she is becoming.
A New Chapter
BR: I haven’t told anybody. I haven’t told the internet, the world, nothing. Literally, babes you are getting exclusives.
TN: Oh my God, congrats. Is it a boy or a girl?
BR: It’s a boy.
TN: The version of you that we’re getting right now is completely new then since the arrival of your son.
BR: Look, I’ve been quiet about it because I wanted it to be addressed in a way that I have control over. Because when people start doing baby announcements, it takes on a life of its own, and it overshadows one’s work.
I was trying to be time-sensitive about it. So right now, I’m only sharing it with you because it’s interview work, it’s archival work.
TN: How are you feeling in this season of your life, personally and creatively?
BR: Personally, I am definitely in a very trying phase, but also, most importantly, I realise how strong I am. Because when you become a woman, and then become a mother while already being a woman, you’re constantly getting stronger every single day of your life. We are always having life-defining moments as women because it’s genuinely hard to be a woman.
Then there’s another added layer when you’re a Black woman. But when you become a mother, there’s a shift that happens. There are more sacrifices you start making. You also start looking deeper into yourself.
Creatively, it’s moved me into being more vulnerable, but also more intentional. My tolerance for things I don’t like — things that waste my time — has gone up. In my early twenties, I didn’t think about time as a serious construct. But now that I’m a mom, I’m very intolerant of things that waste my time or spaces that don’t make me feel good creatively.
Even post-album release, I’m taking time to think about my launch because I don’t want to launch the album just for the sake of it. Everybody’s always like, “Yeah, the album is out.” But I just wanted to sit with it. When I eventually announce my launch, people will understand why I took that long.
TN: Describe a day in your life now when you’re not performing or recording.
BR: Before I became a mom, I was studying. I was finishing off my diploma, so it was mainly music and studies.
Now my day-to-day life is being someone’s mom, someone’s partner, and obsessing over my album. I’m constantly thinking about the arrangements and the live arrangements.
I’ve been thinking about how I can make Qalo a beautiful experience; obsessing over the live arrangements. I think about the music every single day.
It’s like, “Yes, I’m someone’s mom, but there’s this thing I made, and I want to perfect it and make the live experience beautiful."
The Live Experience Ahead
TN: And what does the album launch look like to you? How would you describe it?
BR:My album launch is basically a homecoming experience for me because I grew up in Johannesburg, but I have deep, strong ties to Lesotho.
My grandparents moved to South Africa in the early 1940s because of colonial rule and the economic decline in Lesotho at the time. So I grew up in Soweto, and somewhere along the way, the language was almost lost. My mom still spoke Sesotho fluently, and we still practised Sesotho traditions, so our culture wasn’t lost on me. But as I grew older, especially going to Model C schools, there was definitely a disconnect.
As a jazz musician, I saw people proudly writing in their home languages. People like Miriam Makeba did that beautifully on an international scale. I then realised there was a gap when it came to Basotho storytelling in music.
So even I have gone back and noted things in myself like that the Basotho people are a very respectable nation, but also very calm. And that people mistake that calmness for timidity, but we’re actually strategic. If we have to fight, we will, but we’re diplomatic about it. It’s something I’ve learned as I learn myself and about my people.
I also started learning about my clan names and where they stem from. I learned what ‘Mokoena’ means and the symbolism and significance of the animal.
So my album launch is a homecoming to what has been lost and what is to be regained.
Qalo is the genesis of Bokang. It’s the beginning.
Values, Roots & Community
TN: I love how you described the Sotho people so well. Like, I've never thought of it - the softness or timidness, but really, it's just calculating and strategic.
BR: Oh, definitely. Ke Moshoeshoe. And that's the thing about history in South Africa and Africa, that a lot of people arent exposed to. The work I'm about to carry on doing, is going to bring a lot of awareness to the lack of how much people know about Batswana kings or Bapedi kings and Basotho Kings. Most people don't event know that BaKoena are the oldest clan on this continent.
Even before King Shaka, there was BaKoena. And so King Moshoeshoe was known for that timidness. Many of them knew him as calculative and sly. And this much comes from the fact that he literally was sly, like you couldn't catch him, you wouldn't know where he was coming from with his troops. With us, just know war is coming, you just don't know when.
TN: You’ve said “the hype is not my ministry,” and it feels like you really live that. What keeps you grounded?
BR: What keeps me grounded is definitely my sisters and Modimo. When you understand that you don’t come from yourself, that you’re not an island, that you have community and a Creator, it keeps you humble. Then there’s the community that grounds you - the people who correct you, uplift you, pray for you. Ubuntu is genuinely important. People think it’s a cliché, but it really is how we survive this human experience.
TN: You mention, people who call you out; What’s the most constructive criticism you’ve received?
BR: My eldest sister once told me not to be too hard on myself and that it’s okay to admit when you don’t know things. That was difficult for me because I’m very defensive. I always wanted to feel like I knew everything. But when you admit that you don’t know something, you open yourself up to learning. I had to learn patience with myself. To take time learning something properly so that when I finally do it, I do it correctly instead of rushing through it and becoming defensive because I actually don’t know what I’m doing.
TN: What's your star sign then?
BR: I’m a Scorpio
The Matriarchy, The Womanhood
TN: How has your understanding of womanhood shaped your music and your journey?
BR: Matriarchal forces are the main reason I exist in the way I do today. My mom passed away, and my father wasn’t around for most of my life. The community of women around me became the reason I could thrive. At the National School of the Arts, the first person who made me fall in love with my instrument was my teacher, Omagugu Makhathini. She made me believe in myself, in the beauty of this continent, and in the fact that I didn’t have to try to be American when I’m African.
Then I moved from one woman to another throughout my life - vocal teachers, friends, mentors, sisters. Women were constantly pouring into me.
That’s why I started thinking deeply about creating spaces for young women in music, because it’s difficult to exist in this industry. It would be great if you had a shield of women that would pray for you, protect you, encourage you, cheer you on. Womanhood is community. If a girl asks you for a pad in the bathroom and you help her, that’s womanhood. That’s you saying, “I’ve got you.” But if you’re the kind of woman who wants to tear other women down, I don’t consider you part of that community. We pray for each other. We encourage each other. We protect each other.
Poko
TN: “Poko” is my favourite song on the album.
BR: That hymn is my mom’s favourite hymn, and she named my twin and I after it. My mom passed away when I was very young, she almost feels like a ghost and a myth in many ways because I hear about her in drips and drabs from family members. The only tangible thing I could hold onto and keep myself connected to her through was the hymn, Boko. When I sing it, I feel close to her. I took her favourite stanzas from the hymn because that’s where my twin and my names come from. I wanted to pay tribute to her, but also soothe my own soul because I never really got to know who this woman was.
I also titled it “Boko” because I wanted people to also know about this other feminine force in my life — my twin sister. She recites beautiful words towards the end of the song, and I wanted her to feel part of this memory of someone we both lost at the same time.
Through the song, we get to meet our mother again.
TN: How is it being a twin? Like, especially in adulthood?
BR: In adulthood, she’s become the only person I really, really want to talk to outside of my partner. You become a mother, a wife, all these different things, and while I do have friends, she’s the only person who truly gets the little funny things about me - our colloquialisms, the shared language we have.
She grounds me. She’s the person who prays for me the most. She’s the person I can trust with my biggest secrets because I know she’ll take them to the grave.
And honestly, all my sisters have somehow become my mothers in adulthood. My twin especially has traits of my mom that I’ve picked up on over time. She’s mothered me in moments where I needed softness, where I needed force, where I needed comfort. Sometimes when she speaks or does something for me, I feel my mom through her.
That’s so beautiful. Twins always mesmerize me. You literally walked through life side by side from the very beginning.
Exactly. In the beginning stages of life, you share everything — the same bed, the same spaces - it’s a lot. But as an adult, I’m just grateful. Life gets rocky, especially because my older siblings are much older than us - there’s an 18- or 15-year age gap.
So I’m grateful I get to walk through life with her and navigate everything together. Friends are wonderful, but sometimes you need someone who simply gets it without explanation.
Post Album Reflections
TN: Okay, so Qalo has been out for four months now. How do you feel?
BR: I feel relieved. Honestly, it feels like I gave birth because I’d been carrying that project for a long time. And I know this may sound pompous, but I’ve always had to reintroduce myself to the industry. There were moments where I felt deeply disrespected in certain spaces — promises were made to me that never materialized. I’d constantly find myself in waiting lines while opportunities passed me by and went to people who came after me.
So Qalo became my way of saying: “I did it.” I did it without management, without a team — just me and my partner believing in me. And he’s not even from the jazz world; he’s a hip-hop head. But he saw me clearly and pushed me to make this album happen.
I’d been sitting on these songs for a while. There’s actually more music, but I intentionally kept Qalo concise because I wanted the listening experience to feel intentional. Every song came from a real emotional moment - moments I’d lived through, healed from, and was finally ready to talk about.
And some of it is archival work too.
The Plea
TN: Another one of my favorite songs is “The Plea.” It’s deeply moving live and even through streaming. What inspired it?
BR: I’m currently holding my rainbow baby, and that song came from the loss of his older sibling. Two years ago, I lost my daughter, Moyo Mukwe, due to negligence within the healthcare system. South Africa still has a long way to go when it comes to preserving Black lives — especially Black women in healthcare spaces. “The Plea” came from a moment where I genuinely had no words left. People asked why I repeat the lyrics so much in the song, but that repetition was intentional. I had nothing else to say to God. I was devastated. I kept asking: Will my prayers ever be answered from above?
That question became a daily meditation. A plea.
Nobody in my family had experienced losing a child that young before, so everyone was also at a loss for words. My aunts, my uncles, even my sisters - nobody knew how to comfort me or what rituals to follow because the baby was only two days old.
So the song became me bargaining with God, asking: How much pain can one person carry? I’d already lost my mother. I felt like I’d been in constant mourning my entire life.
TN: It’s incredibly powerful that you’re opening up this conversation.
BR: I have to. There’s so much violence against women within healthcare systems, and women constantly speak about traumatic birth experiences and negligence. That’s the larger doorway “The Plea” opened for me. It’s not just my personal grief anymore - it’s a broader conversation about how Black women are treated in healthcare spaces. Women are dying or losing children not because of unavoidable complications, but because they were neglected.
And the response people get is often cruel: “Why are you having a child if you’re broke?” But access to dignity and proper care shouldn’t depend on wealth. That’s basic humanity.
I realized I couldn’t stay silent anymore, especially after hearing about another young girl who died due to negligence after childbirth. That’s when I knew this conversation had to become part of my work.
TN: You mentioned icons like Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela as influences. Any international influences?
BR: Absolutely. Dianne Reeves is a huge influence for me. So is Jazmine Sullivan. But one of the biggest moments for me was when my sister bought me The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill when I was 14. She told me: “If you’re going to be an artist, do it truthfully.” That album taught me honesty in artistry. Songs like “To Zion” showed me what it means to make deeply personal choices publicly and stand by them despite pressure from the industry. And Jill Scott is another major influence because she made me feel beautiful as a fuller-bodied woman in music. She made it feel okay to be soft, feminine, beautiful, talented - all at once.
BR: I'm gonna really be very brave for the South African context about the fact that we are very Nguni-centric in South Africa, from television, to radio, to art. Muneyi is literally the only Venda artist who I know is doing amazing in the NeoSoul & Jazz scene, So that's also me opening a new political issue.
I think I'm definitely going to be a very problematic person in my industry for politicising everything.
You cannot be an artist and not know that politics informs the way you create
Yes, work like Beyonce’s Black is King brought eyes to the continent but eyes have always been on this continent. It started off with colonization. We cannot believe a lie to say, people don't know us. They know us. They came here for that because they knew about us. So it's important I continue the work I do, archiving and writing my people in.
TN: You sing with your hands a lot, as much as with your voice. What part do you think our hands hold in expression
BR: Surrender, surrendering to the craft because it's a sign of worship also.
My space of belief, when you raise your hand, you are basically surrendering to the fact that you don't know and that what's happening currently is not about you. It's about your connection with this force that you cannot see, because it's either your eyes are closed and you are definitely trying to tune into the process of your surrender. Like I'm I'm at work, somehow not work in terms of physical work, but keep it so my hands are also a sign of honoring this thing that is beyond me, that's not about me even, because it's a calling.
On Collaborations
TN: Who are your biggest collaborators now besides your man, you guys just created your baby and I know always in music. Who else?
BR: My biggest collaborators right now have been from the uManyano Lwe Jazz Team. They've definitely been those people where they've definitely wanted to continuously see me in their space. So I would like to call them a big collaborator of my craft, and also the biggest platform to just put me on. Also the people that helped me create my album, doing me favors. I can name them - Nu-Bam, Tumelo Mathabela, and everyone that was part of this album, those people have been my biggest collaborators.
TN: And who would you love to collaborate with? Musically, or beyond the music?
BR: Bra Herbie Tsoaeli. Bra Herbs, I’m there. Sydney Mavundla is also someone that I'd love to collaborate with. I love horn players. By the way, I'm obsessed with their perspective. Siya Makuzeni is one that I'd also love to collaborate with, because I love her. I'm a fan girl of her. From the piano side of people, I would love to work with Bokani Dyer. And Maleh. I love how she writes, and so I'd really like to get into her head and see how she weave our history and modernity effortlessly.
Visual Identity
TN: I also love your collaboration with Oracle Dynasty. Very big statement looks.
BR: Oarabile definitely is the one who wants me to look like that, because I'm very shy when it comes to how I look. And she's always adamant to have me look regal and take up space. We've been intentional in ensuring I always look the part for performances, panels and appearances.
A Timestamp
TN: In your cover for Qalo, how old were you and why that picture?
BR: I was four, going on five.
That picture is a picture that my mom and my dad kept in their wallet.
And so it sort of warms me up, because I sort of grew up somehow in a low key, broken family. That picture was still when everybody was alive; my mom was still alive. And I still got to enjoy the nuclear family setting.
TN: Beyond awards and accolades, what does success look like for you?
BR: I want to be remembered as a cultural custodian. Beyond being known as a jazz artist, I want my work to become archival - something important enough to one day exist in textbooks. We’re slowly losing parts of ourselves through globalization and modernization, and I feel an urgency to document who we are. I want future generations to know what Basotho music sounded like, what Basotho women looked like, how we expressed ourselves.
And I don’t want African beauty or culture to only feel validated once it’s filtered through Western celebrity or commercial aesthetics. I want us to document ourselves, intentionally and truthfully, from within our own cultures and histories.
Wise Words for the (Creative) Kids
TN: I'm 28 this year, what lessons would you share with a 20 year old; 28 year old artist?
BR: Number one, congratulations for making it through your twenties and surviving what that looks like. Because there's so much that goes on as being a teen as an artist, because being a teen as an artist is quite difficult - because you don't know what you are, and you're trying to figure out. You keep asking yourself questions about If you should create, what you're actually doing, and if you are doing it right. You start wondering if you’re in competition with your peers or yourself.
Yay, because it's not easy to get to 28 and still create and be vulnerable and want to continuously be in this space. Thank you for not giving up on this calling.
But most importantly, what I would say to them is be in spaces where people love you, not only because you are creative and that you sing beautifully, or you play beautifully, or you paint beautifully. Because a lot of us find ourselves in spaces where you're just having an entourage of people just around you because you're cool, because you can sing.
There is also some exclusivity and cliques in the scene and the Nguni-centric thing which is isolating. There’s also an expectation to wait for approval from elders or industry giants for a nod, which I feel I did when I released my album. Nope. You do not need that validation to move.
And the thing of sounding like a jazz giant, it happens a lot in the early years as a musician in the space - somehow you’ll sing a jazz standard and go through the initiation of sounding like someone - Busi Mhlongo, Sibongile Khumalo, Miriam Makeba. Why must I go through a season where my first album, is an ode to a person that's no longer here? That person was the first of their kind with their style.
Allow yourself to be the first of your kind.
Be unapologetically you for the first project; not two or three albums later.
If you're constantly asking for permission to exist, to write, to create, you then have lost. You've lost that sacredness between you and God when He planted that gift of song.
Turning 30
TN: You're turning 30 this year. If you had two words that you're taking into the 30s that can help hold yourself accountable; what would they be?
BR: It's over. Guys, my 20s are wrapping it up. I'm wrapping these twenties up on the 28th of October.
Now that I've become a mom, I know that my 30s are going to be the greatest years of my life, because my 20s, I was definitely an insecure person. Compared myself quite a lot. I failed quite a lot. There were a lot of moments where I doubted myself. So I feel like now that I'm about to turn 30, it's like graduation. I'm wrapping up 29 like we've done it all, we've seen it all. I'm about to graduate.
1. Bold. Be bold. Don't ask for permission to exist and to take up space. Don't waste time on things and people that will take you out of that fact. Let's stop waiting and stop filling your head up with lies.
2. Audacity
Closing
TN: Okay, this is our last question before I ask it. I just want to say, thank you for being vulnerable with me from the start. Thank you for making the time. Thank you for your wisdom, thank you for your music, thank you for loving your people, BaSotho, the Black people, the Woman, your family. Thank you. I think you honored them. You honor them in how you show up in the world, not only when you sing, not only when you share, when you share about them, Your existence is literally you saying, Oh no, we're good, like we cool. I've got you. And the artists that community, and I think the artists that doubt themselves, and, take long. Thank you for being that person. Thank you.
BR: You're making me emotional. Thank you so much. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to thank you for also just putting me in a space where I can just talk about the music and also about what I was feeling because I haven't had a sit down post release of the album. So thank you.
Final Message to Your Kid(s)
TN: If you could leave a message for your child or your children to hear or read and find here, what would it be?
BR: Firstly, honour God. Honour your people. Honour yourself. And if you can do all those three, you're going to be able to understand the human experience, because through those communities of honouring God and the forces that come before you, your ancestors, those people inform the way your human experience will be. That's why your first experience of the world is your home, and everything else is noise, really. And so if you can just honour those three things, your human experience will definitely be informed and full.
As I finally wrote this piece and reflected on our conversation, it is undeniable the fearlessness that Ramatlapeng carries. Mothers and matriarchal forces have led, started, sustained the world and she now joins that powerful lineage. Something that only they know and no one can take that power away.
That magic. That love.