Vodacom Marketing specialist Seema Tsotetsi
…voting starts for the country’s premier artistic awards
Mohalenyane Phakela
Voting for the 2015 Vodacom Lesotho Superstar competition opened on Saturday with the telecommunications giant revealing the SMS voting-codes for the top 34 finalists.
The finalists are split into four categories, namely music, dance, as well as male and female deejays.
Launched in May this year, the fourth installment of this talent-search, saw scores of Basotho audition for the popular competition. The auditions, which were completed in June, were held in Leribe, for the North region, Maseru for the Central region and Mohale’s Hoek for the South region. After the auditions, the list of entrants was reduced to 10 in each category, but due to limited female DJs in Lesotho, there are only four finalists in this category.
Speaking to the Weekender in an interview this week, Vodacom Lesotho Marketing Specialist, Seema Tsotetsi, said: “The voting session has commenced and since the codes were revealed on Saturday, we have had a great response compared to previous editions because now voting is free. What the voters only have to do is SMS the entrant’s code to 54088 and they can vote as many times as they might wish.
“It is up to every artiste to ensure that he or she scores the most number of votes to avoid elimination where two will be removed from each category every week, starting next weekend (28 and 29 August).”
According to Tsotetsi, since this is the first week of the voting process, there would be no eliminations this weekend in order to give entrants time to garner votes. He however, said the finalists would perform in front of judges tomorrow at Times Café and Saturday at the Pioneer Mall.
“When we are left with six finalists in each category, we will eliminate three so that we are left with three and those are the artists who will compete in the final in October.”
The winner in each category would walk away with M70 000, while the runner-up scoops M40 000 and third-place guarantees M20 000.
“In addition to the prize money, the winners would land South African Kalawa Jazmee deals. The music category winner will land a deal to record one single with Kalawa Jazmee records, a video feature with a top Kalawa Jazmee artist for the dance category and performance deals for the deejay category winners in a regional Kalawa Jazmee gig,” he said.
The finalists and their codes are: Dance – Bravo (D1), Captain Movers (D2), Coverse Heroes (D3), Famous Flames (D4), Heart Breakers (D5), Angel Jason (D6), KTA Kings (D7), Naledi Cultural Group (D8), Radebe and Keke (D9) and Urban Slayer (D10); Music – Chocolate Soul (M1), Katleho Tšehla (M2), Mujestic (M3), Khahliso Sello (M4), L-Tore (M5), Meloh (M6), Motseki le Lesiba (M7), Play Ill (M8), Rapelang Lekeke (M9) and Silent Fate (10); Male DJs – Afro DJ (DJ1), DJ Alberto (DJ2), DJ Tony (DJ3), DJ Vesta (DJ4), Monyase DJ (DJ5), Napolinah (DJ6), Phackz DJ (DJ7), Razor Dasoul (DJ8), Shabba DJ (DJ9) and DJ Tšeliso (DJ10); female deejays; DJ Echo (DJ11), DJ El’Alsa (DJ12), DJ Linah (DJ13) and DJ Palycetra (DJ14).
