Taking the Bull by the Horns

Source : Kutlwano

Author : Mothusi Soloko

Location : Gaborone

Event : Interview

Now going with the stage name Tokziq, Nako is not your usual musician. He is the kind of a person who hits the ground running. The 20-year-old RnB lad from Thamaga village in the Kweneng District is confident and not afraid to shout it out: “I am a star in the making!”

 Listening to him speak, one gets the impression that he is a dog with a bone that all the other dogs want to bite. “I know I will make it big, because I am talented and wherever I go there is an overwhelming appreciation from my fans,” he says.

Having been simmering underneath some of the music industry`s heavyweights such as Vee, Mapetla, and Maxy, Tokziq recently joined the industry with his single track album titled Come Back, in which he features a talented young lady named D-Nice. 

It is in this track that his lyrical prowess surfaces and his combination with D-Nice gives the track an exotic feel. And, once Tokziq is on stage the word talent becomes clearer; perhaps the young man is more than that. He is a man hungry to prove a point or two that he has been relegated to the back stage for too long - a place he believes he never belonged to in the first place.

For the past few years he has been working on his quest to mould himself into a top class RnB singer and with the wheels of his career already in motion he believes anyone who jumps in now will be taking a free ride.

“I have been there, I have seen it all when I was still performing with the likes of Maxy, I am now ready to face the world on my own,” he says.

He says he has seen his colleagues` drems go up in smoke, and he knows how it feels like when angry fans pull you from stage and beat you up for failing them. The young musician says he is used to fights for unpaid performance by promoters after the show and he knows the thrill of a good performance. To accommodate all these he says one needs a big heart and a “never say die mentality.”

“While I was with some of my mentors, we would be stranded after the show without transport,” he recalls, adding that there were also moments when fights would break out while they were still on stage forcing them to stop the show. “I was very young then and revellers would chase me out of the performance hall, ” he says.

About musicians who have made it big in the industry such as A.T.I and others, Tokziq says: “I know it`s a dog-eat-dog world but I will not be intimidated by any big names because I know I am talented. The industry is over-crowded but it`s just a few who will inherit it,” he says.

He is currently working on another single which he hopes to complete early this year. He believes it will set tongues wagging. “With my talent and my education the future looks every bright,” says the second-year student of business studies at ABM college. ENDS

Teaser:

“How can I be down when the sun shines on my window pane! I have been there, I have seen that, I have done that,” says Nako Ntsabane