By Kefiloe Kajane
Mobile network company Econet Telecom Lesotho (ETL) gave away cash, data and smartphones to top ten winners who participated in the Econet Theme Song competition which ended on 15 October.
This is after ETL in September launched a theme song competition where top 10 finalists were going to share over M160 000 in cash, smartphones and data.
The purpose of the competition was to expose the wealth hidden in Lesotho’s untapped musical talent as well as celebrating the organisation and its associated products.
ETL’s acting marketing and brand communications manager, Lipalesa Mpemi said the selection of top 10 winners was not easy due the number of entries received.
She said Lesotho has got talent and the judges took their time to listen and carefully analysed all the submissions to select the top 10 winning songs.
“We are grateful to have introduced such an eye-opening competition while we could have just asked a well-known artist to record Econet Theme Song like we have been doing in the past. As we all know, Ccovid-19 came unexpectedly and affected us in our respective fields, some more than others such as the entertainment industry. We were basically forced to adopt to a whole new way of living of which we are all still trying to grasp,” she said.
Mpemi also thanked the public for its participation in the selection of the Econet Theme Song winners.
The competition was open to Lesotho citizens with unreleased music of any genre that is amapiano, gqom, kwaito, hip hop among others which attracted hundreds of artists around the country. The company received over two hundred entries.
In order to select top10 winners, ETL engaged a panel of independent music industry judges, such as Sechaba ‘SirSchaba’ Mokoqo, a deejay, music producer and founding chief executive officer of Young Musicians Emporium, Mookho Moqhali, award winning afro-jazz, neo-soul, afro-pop and gospel musician, as well as Dallas T, who is a radio, TV presenter and producer.
The selection criteria were based on the performers tone in terms of clarity, resonance and focus, intonation, rhythm, technique, interpretation and creative inclusion of ETL products. The ultimate winners were selected through ‘likes’ by the public and ETL staff members during a three weeks’ time frame.
