Mzansi is buzzing with lekompo — the emerging Limpopo dance music sub-genre that’s succeeded Bolo house.
Bolo house is a fusion of Afro-pop rhythms, fast-paced house beats, repetitive loops plus catchy melodies that are heavily influenced by and embedded in the rich heritage of Limpopo’s Bolobedu region. The late Bojo Mujo, Master KG, King Monada, and Makhadzi were the Bolo house sonic architects, pioneering its mainstream evolution.
Enter lekompo: a modern update of Bolo house that has quickly found commercial success. It’s much more catchy, chaotic, and crushing — guaranteed to brighten your day, loosen your bones, and inspire participation in a TikTok dance challenge. At the forefront is Shandesh, anointed the queen of Lekompo for shaping the sub-genre.
“The term lekompo was coined afterwards, but Bolobedu dance music has always been there,” the 21-year-old singer explains on the phone, her voice hoarse. She warns me before we start talking on a Friday morning that she has laryngitis — she has been struggling to shake off the flu, since she’s been booked and busy the entire week.
“The name references the people living in the poorest areas of the Bolobedu region, in squatter camps; we used to call those regions ‘kompong’,” she says. “It is always cluttered there and they listen to distinct music — usually Bolobedu dance music — but they play their music super loud. So, the genre has turned something deemed negative into a positive, and that pride can be heard in the lyrics and sound.”
Shandesh has the biggest song of the year with Sdudla or Slender, featuring Mvzzle. The catchy lyrics — backed by a fun TikTok challenge — have made the song an anthem to self-love by celebrating a positive body image.
Witty and whimsical, Shandesh sings that she can’t tell if she has lost or gained weight since she’s just overwhelmed with happiness — she’s changing size on a daily basis; one day she’s wearing a size 34, the next a 37.
She truly embodies the lyrics of the song. A few days before her SMag cover shoot, we are texting on WhatsApp and I ask for her clothing measurements in standard sizes (30, 32, 34) so the stylist can start sourcing. I almost fall off my chair with laughter when she responds. “Not sure … I wear my sizes based on ‘medium’ and ‘small’ coz of the clothes I wear, they don’t have 23 or numbers,” she texts back.
Lekompo has catapulted Shandesh from obscurity into superstardom, and she’s still battling to come to terms with her newfound fame. Real name Rakgoale Nelly Machete, she was born in Dithabaneng village in the Ga-Mphahlele area, outside Lebowakgomo. The youngest of three, she later moved to Solomondale, outside Polokwane. They were raised by a single mother, who struggled to put food on the table.
“I’m grateful that she made sure that we were fed and could go to school, but it was a tough upbringing,” she says. “When we would have ‘casual Friday’ at school, I always wished my mother would buy me this particular pair of sneakers. I had a screenshot of it and went everywhere with it.
"My situation back then didn’t allow my mom to buy me those sneakers and she just kept saying, ‘I will buy it for you.’ So now I have a room full of sneakers, between 200 and 300 pairs, I’ve lost count. My mom and family are proud, I can see it through their support, but for the most part they are in disbelief.”
Her rags-to-riches journey is an inspirational story. “It will shock people to find out how poor I was growing up,” she says. “For that reason, I want to change the lives of young kids who grow up like I did and show them through my story that it is possible. But everything that you want, you must work hard for it.”
Shandesh struggled in school but found solace in music. She says she grew up in a family of singers and was always singing in choirs, whether at primary school or Sunday school. In grade 8, in 2018, she recorded her first song. It was an R&B song called Love Me No More and, to her surprise, her peers were hooked.
“I had a friend who wanted to try something with me in studio. We were just fooling around; it was a game to us,” she remembers. “It was popular in my region and I wrote it in English. I knew nothing about love, but the music I listened to back then focused on relationships.”
Before long she was recording Bolo house music, later moving into Lekompo. Shandesh credits this to her idol, King Monada. Before long she was booking local gigs, singing at kids’ birthday parties, and finding herself in the lineup at music festivals. She has since worked with King Monada on the 2024 song Ke Khumane Photo Tsao.
“I had heard a lot about him through our industry peers and seen how he was portrayed in the media, living a particular lifestyle that is not always positive,” she says. “But when I met him, I didn’t experience him that way. What was clear was his work ethic; he wanted to work with someone who was just as committed and knew exactly what they wanted.”
Ga Mmapula featuring Hitboss is the breakout song that gave Shandesh crossover appeal. “People knew me, but after that song, my audience and reach grew. Suddenly, other tribes and cultures outside of Limpopo were listening to my music,” she observes.
Sdudla or Slender remains her biggest song to date. “It is another love song, but I wanted the lyrics to have ambiguity. At the time I had just got out of a relationship and things did not go well. Then I entered a new relationship and it was amazing — to the point that I started to gain weight.”
Di Chopper reunites her with regular collaborator Mvzzle. It’s a hit on every DJ set this spring and has started another TikTok challenge. “That one is reflective of my journey — compared to where I started, I have reached unimaginable heights. I’m a superstar now.” We both laugh as she says the word “superstar” under her breath — it’s clearly still sinking in.
