31 Mar 2021

An Afro Jazz artiste, who is also living with disability, Gaone Ditirafalo, alias Gee; recently got international recognition, by winning the 2020 Mulher Forte African Literature award.

She contested under the Best Traditional Music Contemporary category through her three-track Afro Jazz EP album titled: Be Hopeful that she released in 2019.

In an interview with BOPA recently, Gee said she was nominated with abled bodied participants from 10 African countries among them South Africa, Lesotho, Tanzania and Nigeria and she came out tops.

She revealed that she was born physically abled, but in 2018, she was diagnosed with Lupus that left her paralysed.

Gee said for the first six months, she had to use a wheelchair, but her condition improved and she now walks on a single crutch.

She said she was aware that disabilities limited people from chasing their dreams, but she vowed to remain resilient and fight.

Gee said being diagnosed with Lupus was very devastating, considering she had just returned home in March 2018, after graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Live Performance (Screen and Music Performance).

She said her studies at AFDA Capetown were made possible by a scholarship she won during the 2013 My Star Talent Show.

Gee said although her health condition was taxing, all the support she received from her mother and other family members enabled her to push beyond limits and eventually she produced an album titled Be Hopeful.

She said the title track Be Hopeful intended to raise awareness about Lupus and also to encourage sufferers to know of their potential and to desist from being hard on themselves.

“Most people with this condition, find it hard to accept it, on the other hand, families with such cases often associate them with bad luck and witchcraft and this delays sufferers from going for their dreams,” she said.

Gee said the other track, Mo dipuleng was to reminisce about the old days when most communities lived peacefully, with less social ills, adding that then, young children used to dance freely in the rain, something that she said had now faded away.

She said since she was not fully recovered, she did all her performance seated.

She shared that the COVID-19 pandemic had negatively affected her, just like other artists. Gee said she used to perform at social gatherings at a cost, to make ends meet, but that has since stopped due to COVID-19 protocols .

She also revealed that she had scheduled gigs locally and across borders to continue raising awareness about Lupus, but had to put them on hold. BOPA