13 Apr 2023

Thirty-one-year-old Onkabetse Mseven Pantsola Onyaditse still has fire in the belly to churn out music. What started as pass-time for the Matsitama lad and a set of friends during formative years at Tagala Primary School has turned out to be a passion.

Mseven Pantsola’s penchant for singing has seen him singing in school choirs at junior school. He also ventured into drama while at primary school. While at Montsamaisa junior school in Francistown in 2008, Mseven Pantsola and crew started a musical group called Magomsha, a name he would live to regret because it had negative connotations.

He attributes the choice of name to youthful exuberance! “Ke lemoga ke setse kele kana gore ha le ne re jele error,” he says.

Although they started as a group of five, three members quit along the way, leaving Mseven and one crew member in the lurch.

The two went into the studio and recorded the album Malaitinyana, a hybrid of kwaito and house Kwasa thanks to a Good Samaritan by the name Keasweditse Nkgadimang known in production circles as Digital Codesa of Auto-Tune Studios.

As fate would have it, the fellow member left the group after gaining employment at Letlhakane. This left Mseven with no option but to recruit new members; something he managed to do successfully.

“We performed at functions in the City of Francistown. It happened that towards the end of 2014 Codesa, who has become my lifeblood chipped in and helped record for us a seven-track album called This is Lepantsola, free of charge.

The album was well received in the market and we received a lot of invitations. People were especially fascinated by my gyrated stage moves,” he said.

He worked with Codesa until 2017 when they amicably parted ways. Codesa wanted the young man to establish himself. Although the album spun a lot of money, Mseven blew it all.

In 2017, Mseven’s life took a dramatic turn. He got employed in a security company, a job that took him to Kasane, far away from his family for a year. A music junkie,

Mseven juggled his job with the music and pushed for a single, Rejabutse which was recorded at the then Daily life records now Studio 100 in 2018.
It did well in the market and he performed the song in Presidential music competitions the same year.

In 2019 the school of the hard knocks coerced the young lad to record Never Give Up. He had a lot on his plate; he was hundreds of kilometres away from home, had three siblings to take care of, and bills to pay with a meagre salary.

“I was distressed and caught between the rock and the hard place. Although I earned a little, quitting was not an option. That is when this song came into my mind and I recorded it straight away. I used this single album to sell my brand to the masses through various social media platforms,” he said

In 2022, Mseven entered the presidential competitions and got third position in the contemporary category. This took him to Serowe where he become number 17 out of 46 contestants.

He was no longer working and as fate would have it MYSC engaged him the following year during one of the activations and paid him P2 500.

To put the icing on the cake, his music savior, Codesa called Mseven and offered to record yet another album for the kwaito star.

“We have entered into an agreement that Codesa will be my manager this time around. He will be managing shows, record sales, and many others,” says Lerato la Modimo hit maker.

He posits Lerato la Modimo is a reflection of the love that God has conferred upon him despite a myriad of challenges.

“Ke go leboga modimo go bo a ntshegeditse mo dikgwetlgong tsotlhe. Maikaelelo a this single is to push my brand,” he told BOPA.

Plans are afoot to shoot a music video for this particular single that is all over the social media handles and has proven to be a hit with music fans. ENDS