The person on the other end of the line was her fathers friend his voice was tight and hesitant.
He left yesterday but hasnt come back, she replied.
The friend hung up.
The station wagon in whichfamoartist Kholopo Khuluoe and his friend Macheli were shot last summer.
It was just suspicious, she tells me.
Minutes later, Mahali scrolled through the news on her phone.
Thats when she saw what shed previously only detected in the friends voice.
Her father had been shot.
Mahali rushed to the police station.
There might have been a mistake, she thought.
Maybe he was on his way home.
Next to him was Pulane Macheli, 27, a well-known radio DJ.
They were waiting for a third person a friend, or so they thought.
The police told us he died at the scene, Mahali says.
Then, they took her to the government mortuary to identify the cadaver.
That day, the grief was overwhelming.
Her father had been her business partner, friend, and guide she was always with him.
She was his only child.
Mahali cried in front of the press cameras that came to report her fathers death.
Ive lost the purpose of life, she said.
In Lesotho, people knew Kholopo Khuluoe by his stage name, Lisuoa, which means Spitefulness.
In recent years, organized crime and violence have plagued it.
Its heard in markets or throbbing from taxi radios and speakers in rickety roadside bars.
Each region in Lesotho has its own unique sound, and different groups have formed around various famous artists.
There had always been feuds among these groups.
When it started, though, these feuds were just for sport.
I have always been a good person.
I did not choose to be a bad one.
The harsh land has shaped my path.
My people, I was good.
It is not my doing.
I have been wronged by others along the way, he sang.
Even the circumstances surrounding Khuluoes murder were suspicious.
In October, two peoplewere chargedwith the murders of Khuluoe and Macheli.
Sources in the Lesotho Mounted Police Service say investigations into other suspects from rival gangs are ongoing.
I crossed the southern border from Drakensberg National Park on the back of a sturdy pony.
Wearing an off-white cap over short-cropped hair, Morena is of medium height and as thin as a needle.
Suddenly, a beat crackles and thuds through the speaker.
He then starts proclaiming in Sesotho (Lesothos native language) to the thud of the music.
Morenas real name is Teboho Mochaoa.
Morena Leraba is my stage name, hed told me earlier.
It means Lord Snare.
Most families werent educated back then, so that was quite rare, he says.
As a young boy, he stared at the pages of the books because he couldnt read.
I escaped through books.
Morenas curiosity about the world took him far beyond the fields of Mafeteng.
This path set him apart from many of his peers, who often turned to illegal mining.
You choose to do it, he says, referring to the gangs.
And you could choose to keep out of it as well.
Morena tells me he fell into the music by chance.
YOU CHOOSE TO DO IT, FAMO ARTIST MORENA SAYS OF THE GANGS.
AND you might CHOOSE TO KEEP OUT OF IT AS WELL.
In 2011, he worked on social media marketing for a local band and found himself in the studio.
One of the performers wanted a famo artist on the album.
Morena joked, Ah, Im from Mafeteng….
I can drop a few bars.
The artist didnt want to choose the wrong performer and cause trouble for himself.
Choosing Morena, who had no gang affiliation, was a safe bet.
We ended up saying, Hey, OK, give it a try, he tells me.
It was one of those serendipitous moments.
They just think its white music … like, its traditional lyrics on white music, he says.
But Morena hasnt abandoned the musics history.
Modern famo is said to have emerged in the drinking dens of those mine workers.
The dancing men resume their positions on the bench or at the pool table.
I tell Morena Im meeting the so-called Queen of Famo later that afternoon.
Youre interviewing Puseletso Seema?
he asks in surprise.
Ive never met her.
I say he should come along.
Inside, everything is cream and white: cream tile floors and whitewashed walls.
Now in her late seventies, she wears a headscarf, a blue tunic, and pink slip-on sneakers.
Seema doesnt speak English, so Morena and a rapper and producer, Thulo, translate for me.
(Thulo and Morena call Seema Mama out of respect and affection when speaking to her.)
She had completed only a few years of formal education when she started singing at 12.
Her family was always against her passion.
Music was for people without ambition, they always told her, like its backwards, she says.
At 15, she was raped by her then-boyfriend.
Music never left her.
Famo music was seen as inferior and less cultured back then, she says.
That all changed after her brothers death in the early 1980s.
She couldnt sing about real pain and anguish in a second language.
Now, she recalls, Im going to sing in my own language.
Fellow Basotho people, take care of the grazing velds and keep them in good condition, she sings.
Famo musicians seldom bother with pen and paper.
Their craft is about memory.
This storytelling prowess is known aslikheleke,or wordsmithing.
But none of these accomplishments insulated her from further tragedy.
In the following years, she lost two more husbands to gang violence.
She says she was also consistently ripped off by merciless record labels, promoters, and producers.
She never made the money that she thought was due to her.
Seema tells me famo has always had its adversarial side.
Back then, people fought for sport and who was the best wordsmith.
There was violence in these factions when they were fighting.
But it wasnt so much with guns….
It was more sticks and stones, she says.
In the following years, though, things would change.
By the mid-1990s, many South African gold mines closed because they were no longer profitable.
The remaining low-quality gold was buried deep and was expensive to extract.
Thousands of miners, many Basotho people, and many famo musicians were now unemployed.
But where multinationals saw ruin, organized crime saw an opportunity.
Gangs like the Marashea moved in.
At the same time, famo music was gaining popularity across southern Africa.
Advances in recording technology and increased radio play expanded the genres reach.
In the early 2000s, performers like Chakela and Lekase rose to prominence.
As their followings grew, these musicians formed factions of fellow musicians and fans.
The music, in effect, became branding.
Even when things were bad, there was no blood, it wouldnt be spilled so carelessly.
Every year, the situation gets a little worse.
I cant say, My son, you are wrong.
Because immediately when that ends and everything seems calm, when I turn around, theyll off me.
The conversation moves to the front yard.
They bounce around her like giddy young children.
Morena shows Seema videos of his latest performances and excitedly awaits her approval.
Morena explains the thinking behind each song taking his phone from her to adjust the volume or the backlighting.
I want to show her another song, he says with a grin.
We stay there talking until the sun lowers behind the ragged mountains.
Jem, a local fixer, and I had decided to buy SIM cards.
What he didnt want us interrupting was an arrest.
Behind us, a line of taxi drivers hollered as the police rummaged through the suspects belongings.
They cheered and booed, as if they were watching a soccer game.
He says hes witnessed the violence worsen over the past two decades.
He remembers that when the gangs first formed, violence existed but killings were rare.
Famo gangs structured themselves like organized-crime syndicates.
In the case of Terene, power is centralized.
There is usually one leader, often a famo musician, who recruits followers.
Beneath him are lieutenants who manage daily operations, while enforcers carry out violent acts against rival factions.
Seakhi, on the other hand, follows a franchise-like model.
And from 2009 onward, these factions were at war.
In 2015, high-ranking Lesotho government officials called for famo music to be banned altogether.
These days, Makakole tells me, the gang landscape is a bewildering array of dozens of group names.
Its sad because everyone is involved, probably up to the minister level.
Everyone is being corrupted by it, he says.
The violence has also become far more brutal.
Its a turf war.
It happened like this: A local gang boss called him at the radio station that evening.
The boss was angry.
He said the DJ was taking sides by playing too much of a rivals music.
While driving home that night, the DJ didnt see the car with armed men following him.
He didnt see when they pulled up outside of his house.
And he didnt see them cocking their guns.
There, they stood eerily silent, aiming their pistols but not shooting.
Then he saw why the men had frozen.
The DJs young daughter had crept into the room.
She stepped between him and the gunmen.
She put her hands up, so they couldnt do anything, he says.
The men lingered for a few more moments and then left.
When the DJ thinks about it now, he feels relief.
Theyd killed families before.
Why didnt they kill him and his daughter that night?
But this is the world he lives in now.
The gangs hijacked famo and sucked in all of society.
They even kill kids, he says.
In recent years, politicians and famo factions have become natural allies.
The favors have been known to extend beyond vote winning.
In 2017, former Prime Minister Thomas Thabane was put on trial for killing his first wife.
Id learned about Lehlanya before setting foot on the plane to Lesotho.
The 12 bullet holes in the door were telling, the cars owner said in an email in February.
The DJ tells me he knows Lehlanya.
He says he might organize an interview for me, but Id have to give him some time.
He says it will be a phone call.
Lehlanya is not in the country.
I shout into a telephone while the DJ and my driver translate.
The phone signal keeps cutting out.
He says people in mining are just trying to help their families.
He also shoots down any notion of governmental complicity.
Are these groups bribing government officials?
Theyre just busy with their own businesses.
Nothing to do with the government.
Before I do so, I warn the DJ will this question endanger him?
It should be fine.
Lehlanyas tone is evident.
The criminal allegations are all speculation, he says.
Deep down, I know I didnt do anything.
There is evidence contradicting Lehlanyas protests.
For one, there are posters featuring that daysLesotho Timesplastered throughout the capital.
They scream, Famo leader warns of bloodbath.
Even officials who gangs havent corrupted are part of hopelessly underresourced departments.
(A spokesperson for the South African Police Service didnt respond by press time.)
An empty stomach wont listen [to reason], he says.
Tsatsi la Botlokotsebe (Day of Crime) was playing.
People must go have fun outside, but they must also be on the lookout for goons.
Her father had been a man driven by dangerous idealism an idealism that, Mahali feels, killed him.
I still dont feel safe.
Im still scared of what might happen to me, she tells me over the phone this fall.
Her fathers example was powerful.
A totem has fallen, shed said at his funeral.
