26 Mar 2017

-At a tender age of 18, Menzile Chester, who is popularly known to her fans as Mp3rd, is already making a name for herself as a female rapper with rare skills when behind the microphone.
Born and raised in Francistown by both her parents who are well grounded Christians with her other six siblings, she is slowly earning respect by curving a name for herself in the music industry for her unique style of rapping.
Mp3rd who hails from Jackalas No 2 traces her love for music to her days at junior secondary school where she was doing mainstream hip hop for fun.
Touching on her voyage as an artiste, Mp3rd, said her name comes from the fact that she wanted to be the people’s music storage, which is their MP3.
“Basically it is Menzile Placed third,” she said, noting in an interview that she looks up to God first and then her audience comes second in her life, then lastly herself.
She had to be patient in order to be where she is today despite the fact that people used to tell her that she could not make it in the hip-hop scene.
“However, that did not bring me down as I was constantly practising at home and now I am a rapper who composes her own songs,” she said.
Mp3rd took part in a number of shows at Francistown Senior Secondary School where she completed her Botswana General Certificate of Secondary Education last year.
She also performed at Botswana International University of Science and Technology where one of her brothers schools.
It was only after then that she was definite about doing music as the response she received, especially from the older generation was amazing.
Through the help and support of her parents who are her backbone they managed to acquire, her and her siblings’, music equipment and software, which helps them in their pursuit of music.
She is forever grateful to them as she is able to produce quality music together with her brothers who are also very much into the music scene.
The hip-hop artiste said that Francistown artistes are not given the recognition they deserve and she wants to change that by putting the city back on the map.
At her age, it is undoubtedly right to say that she is destined for greater things in the industry despite the challenges that she faces.
“My style of rap is more of commercial hip-hop, in other words I express real life issues. Commercial hip-hop is not all about rapping and diss tracks about rappers, but it is also done to intellectualise and address real life issues and that is how people relate to you and your music,” she said.
Just like any other youth in her age, she grew up listening to anything that was good to her ears such as famous United States rappers like Eminem, Nicki Minaj and Tidashe, who is a Christian rapper.
She said she generally looks up to successful women of integrity who acknowledge God first, adding that music is an art that needs dedication and passion.She has worked with Sasa-Klaas and also shared the stage with B-Block Exclusive.
Mp3rd, who is often labelled as Francistown’s only female rapper has released a number of singles, first one with her crew was in 2014, followed successfully by her other singles.
She also did an amazing cover on the popular Panda song, which had overwhelming responses, noting that her singles should be attributed to her brothers who are her producers.
“I recently also shot the video to my latest single, Yeh Yeh and so far the response is amazing too,’ she added.
She is also working on other projects as well although she could not give any details and she said that she is set to elevate the status of hip hop in Botswana with her different approach and quality music.
Mp3rd added that she has no intentions of recording an album as albums do not sell and there is also the issue of piracy and plagiarism.
She noted that most of female rappers in Francistown do not make it because of lack of support from parents. ENDS