John Ekongo When I was growing up, for girls my age it was natural for them as nine, ten and eleven-year olds to play with full-bloomed lilies, butterflies and dolls. Well, it was not exactly Barbie Doll, but so long you imagined it was, and then all was well. Now I did occasionally join in the fanfare, of playing ‘huisietjies’ or ‘mama and papa’. But I swear we were never up to any mischief, than just innocent play, thank goodness for that. So we were just being natural sweet-faced little angels. But now we have little angels of a different kind singing ‘Clap your hands’ all over our stereo systems. Well, I never minded actually, to say the least, until a fortnight ago. Not knowing whether to crack my funny bones and laugh hysterically, I became bamboozled to a peak that I thought my pants were going to slip off my ankles at one point or the other. As I was saying, the pre-teen duo of Angels, under the banner of Butterfly Music Entertainment/Ogopa Deejay and Videos took to the stage at a recently ended music concert to perform a much-anticipated new song from their staple, alongside a South African afro-pop group. Let me just say, after the end of the song I was more confused than I could ever be, more like what was the message? ‘Clap your hands’ was absolutely a very delicate song and easy to the mouth, the rhythms as well, so long you could boogie like ten and eleven-year olds. But if events of a fortnight ago are anything to go by, they left me a bitter taste, which I am of the opinion only Sunlight dishwashing liquid can clean. To sing that “now that I found you I don’t want to lose you, you touch my heart, touch my soul, you are sweet like honey” verse in any song is a bit skeptical, be it any one. Abreast of that you have little girls clad in skimpy outfits, rhyming honey over and over again. But for ten-year olds I think the message is lost and our little angels might have just stretched themselves into early adolescence. Because, what they just said is not part of their language strata, or social strata. Let alone it not being their ages yet. The lyrics of too many Namibian pop culture songs are reminiscent of hardship, life’s lessons and just about everything we identify with. In fact most of the messages taken we acknowledge them as part of our life’s struggles. ‘Zula to Survive’ teaches us sense of purpose to survive, ‘Serious’ the same, also Jackson Kauejewa’s ‘Tombo ii tombolola’, trades on the displeasure of alcohol, The Dogg’s ‘Why’, Nandi pule or Inakusha, ask questions about the fairness of life. Even Phura’s. More often we can identify with these song titles, although not always for the right reasons but we still do because it comes straight from someone who has a personal and life’s experience. But when little girls start mumbling on about their remarkable new found taste for honey and unwillingness to lose it because it feels so good, then I am starting to see stars and THAT IS NO GOOD. Then unfortunately I have a problem. I would then want to know, what life experiences are these young innocent little angels depicting? Is it the bottled honey, or some sort of honey or which honey? So whoever conceived the idea that kids can write such lyrics or even sing such words have no ethical or moral considerations. Hopefully Butterfly Music Entertainment as an upcoming entity should know better not to trod on treacherous grounds, with the wrong tools. This being for fear that even those in the music industry should know better that the public are consumers of their products and it must reflect not only the environment, but respect to culture and most of all it should have a positive message, be it out of good or bad, the message should always be towards uplifting-orientated. Eewa