Songstress with a blues passion

Local musician Ofentse Mogale says she has tried to run away from the blues, but it ultimately became her genre of choice.

The 20-year-old dreams of becoming one of the best instrumentalists from Polokwane and explained that her choice to become a musician was influenced by the type of music she listens to.

Artists such as Johnny Clegg, Ray Phiri, BB King, Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters, Junior Wells, Eric Clapton, John Mayer and her favourite, Stevie Ray Vaughn are her biggest inspiration.

“I come from a musical family where singing and playing musical instruments was the norm. Singing came natural to me as well, it was the first pipeline into a lifelong love of all things music. I began singing at my local church, which led to it becoming an extra-mural activity at Pepps.”

Ofentse explained that she started playing the guitar in Gr 8 and it was her first choice because the music she listened to was guitarbased.

“I worked hard. It was not easy, playing the guitar is very tricky and requires one to focus, but my teacher, Ashley van der Walt made the learning journey a smooth one. He was my high school music theory teacher and basically set the ball rolling for my entire musical career.”

She explained that she moved to the North West for boarding school where she sang in a church band and continued to learn guitar by watching YouTube and reading. After a gap year, honing her craft, she went to language school in Kobe, Japan, for 10 months as she will be studying music composition in the country towards the end of the year.

Ofentse says she has always found herself drawn to old soul music and her fondest memories include sitting at her grandparents’ feet, listening to the music of their time on an old radio on Sundays, listening to Thobela FM and the best of the ‘Ballad

Age’, which included music from legendary blues musicians such as Etta James, Luther Vandros, Sam Cooke, Whitney Houston and the likes.

“I am currently working on a blog about song writing, scheduled to launch at the end of February.

“It’s called The Songmason and will feature tips and techniques to help the average man become more articulate and make the writing experience more enjoyable because as a creative, if you don’t create, you die,” she said.