Shakawe with Dennis Mpale

After studying music in New York, trombonist Jonas Gwangwa settled in Gaborone and started the band Shakawe in the early 1980s. The lineup included other accomplished Medu musicians—Tony Cedras, Steve Dyer, and Dennis Mpale—and a changing roster of Botswana artists.

Posters like this one were routinely distributed across Gaborone to advertise Shakawe’s weekend gigs at the city’s famed Club 500, where the band performed an Afro-fusion repertoire to large crowds. According to Medu member and music historian Gwen Ansell, Shakawe “realized the Medu vision of working collaboratively with local players and creating a sound that drew on Setswana traditions alongside Johannesburg and New York modernity.”