06 Sep 2022

 Veronica Kgalalelo Brooks, porpularly known as BOTSDIVA Vebrok will celebrate her 40^th birthday by donating food hampers to various families and school children at Mochudi on Saturday.

Unlike other birthday celebrations where celebrants are showered with gifts, for BOTSDIVA Vebrok  it’s a day to show gratitude for 40 years of life.

Like the saying Life begins at 40 the musician wanted to do something meaningful that will touch lives.  

Briefing the press in Gaborone, the entertainer said giving to the needy always made her happy.

She said she derived joy from blessings or helping less privileged members of the community.

She has spent her past birthdays donating and attending to disadvantaged senior citizens of Molepolole.

The musician who relocated to  Johannesburg in South Africa since 2006, has been in the music industry for the past 14 years and has six albums and 8 singles to her name.

She has featured the likes of Kanda Bongo Man, the late Lundi, A.T.I, Berry Heart, just to mention a few.

“I started with house music genre, given the spectrum of followers I have, I decide to change the line of my music to Afro Rumba,” she said.

She went to South Africa in 2001 to do Computer and Secretarial studies and in 2003 went to Zimbabwe to do Beauty Therapy.

She said in 2006 she went to South Africa where she recorded her first album, and as the years went by, she did film and drummer a course she completed last year.

BOTSDIVA Vebrok  is now a film director and producer and has a movie dubbed How can I kill based on a true story.

Given her light skin people assumed she was of mixed race, which prompted her to record her song, Ke mokgatla in 2017

She said artists should not only focus in music but should also think of other income generating activities such as acting, producing and businesses, as focusing only in music could be frustrating in case of  calamities such as COVID-19, which badly impacted the music industry.

Award winning and seasoned promoter Zenzele Hirschfield of Zen Promotions said she met BOTSDIVA Vebrok  early 2000.

She said they have worked together, and she had seen her rise and fall. 

“I wish her well in her endeavor as she intends opening up to international stages. I ask for Batswana and all in the industry to encourage and support her, as artistes requires such. We have an evolving industry and the digital migration has even advanced the gap. As much as it comes with its positives it also has the negatives,” she explained.

Hirschfield said she could not wait for September 10 to see BOTSDIVA Vebrok  performing as she promised, and doing that in a community that had raised her, something which would be cherished by many.

Botswana Entertainment Promoters Association (BEPA) Gilbert Seagile said as an Association which cared about the creatives, they gave BOTSDIVA Vebrok’s efforts thumps up.

He said that BEPA’s aim was to professionalise musicians’ craft, by turning it into a business adding that BOTSDIVA Vebrok  was a good example.

Seagile said BEPA believed that artistes had the spirit of business and could contribute to the country’s GDP.  ENDS