Beautiful World

The Namibian-born Elemotho (stage name of Gaalelekwe Richardo Mosimane) grew up listening to his elders telling stories around a campfire in the Kalahari desert before studying psychology and philosophy at a South African university. Since becoming a professional musician 20 years ago, he has split his time between Europe and his homeland. His music has a gentle troubadour's lilt, as those who saw him at WOMAD three years ago will know. He sings about such admirable subjects as world peace and human brotherhood. Yet ultimately he can be as irritating as an African version of James Blunt, whom he sounds disturbingly like on the saccharine title-track. He's more palatable when the triteness of his lyrics is concealed by singing in the Bantu language of Setswana, but mostly he croons in English, punctuated by the occasional tribal chant. There's a decent enough 12-bar blues (‘Coming’) on which he sounds rather like Eric Bibb and a breathy lullaby to his baby son (whose voice is sampled) on which he comes on like Sting on an off-day. His heart is clearly in the right place and he's obviously highly talented, which makes it all the more frustrating that his music is so damnably bland.