14 Sep 2022

The 15th annual cultural Son of the Soil (SOTS) will be back next year.

The SOTS was last held in 2020 at Staywell Gardens in Gaborone just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world.

Established in 2015, Son of the Soil has over the years become the foundation of cultural tourism events, with the mushrooming of many cultural showcases around the country.

Briefing the media on Wednesday, the chairperson of Bana ba Mmala, which Trust owns SOTS, David Kepaletswe said they had partnered with Beat Box Productions, a locally owned events company to ensure the successful coordination of the show.

“With a partner in place, SOTS patrons will have an enhanced event with proper planning,” said Kepaletswe.

He noted that all copyrights and intellectual property remained with Bana Ba Mmala Trust, adding that while they had engaged an events management company, they would also have an advisory council, which would work closely with the events management company.

Beat Box Productions will coordinate, plan and manage SOTS for the next three years.

A fast-growing entity in the field of events coordination, musical production, promotions and multimedia management, Beat Box Productions aims to take SOTS to the next level.

“We are honoured for the opportunity to work with Bana ba Mmala Trust,” Beat Box Productions director Sydney ‘Boogie Sid’ Nzala has said.

The production company has coordinated some big events such as Gaborone Africa Youth Games 2014, Kabelano Charity Spectacular 2015, Interbank Games Music Festival from 2012 to 2018, Orange 555 Monyaka Tour 2013 and many others.

Beat Box Productions also worked with SOTS on the 14th edition in 2020.

Boogie Sid said in the last edition of SOTS, they were engaged in the logistics side and groundwork of the event, adding that in 2019 they were involved in the SOTS’ jazz event at Serokolwane farm.

“It is a big challenge, SOTS is an iconic brand and mother of all cultural events in our country,” Boogie Sid said, adding that his young enthusiastic team would be digitalising the event in terms of promotion through content.

“We believe in the youth and that they are the people who will take our culture to the next level,” he said, noting that digitalising the event would give the youth a chance to engage through social media on the event.

Boogie Sid further said they would re-brand some of the activities around the event.

“We are going to re-brand the concept of the kgotla, which has always been in existence in the activities of SOTS,” said Boogie Sid.

In the conversations around the kgotla, he said they would engage experts, custodians of culture to speak on certain cultural topics to the youth.

“Culture is the fabric of every nation, therefore it is important to continuously revitalise it and talk about its preservation and promotion,” said Boogie Sid.

He, however, highlighted that it was important for the corporate sponsors to come on board to constantly keep the cultural event relevant so that activities such as metswaiso chillas, dikhwaere, setapa and food would remain part of the event.

Bana Ba Mmala is a non-profit organisation whose proceeds from fundraising activities including SOTS cultural festival are used for cultural research.

Some of the funded research was the documenting of the Setswana games as well as modern ones and olden Setswana poetry, the packaging of tribal histories into three paragraphs versions as well as the documentation of the Setswana attire and packaging of Botswana dances, among others. ENDS