Donald Leungo Molosi is a second-year Masters student at UCSB and an alum of Williams College. With his fiction, plays and poetry widely published in prestigious literary magazines such as Saraba throughout the African continent, Molosi is recognized as one of the finest and most influential artists in Botswana.
He is an official Ambassador for Brand Botswana and the youngest-ever recipient of the Khama Brilliant Spirit Award (2003), a prestigious Presidential award, for his contribution to the arts in Botswana. In that capacity he has had the privilege of being invited to perform his political one-man plays in front of many dignitaries including Nelson Mandela, Kofi Annan and Bill Clinton. Molosi has, in the past, both performed and presented scholarly findings concerning the arts and national memory at the UN General Assembly (2002) and the UN World Youth Conference (2012). For the past 11 years, Molosi has worked closely with the UN and the African Union as a spokesperson for the performance-based popularization of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the African Charter on Children’s Rights and Responsibilities, respectively.
“Today It’s Me,” is the true story of the legendary Ugandan musician Philly Lutaaya, whose soulful AfroPop rhythms united a generation of Ugandans. Inspired by his continent and its people, Lutaaya kept faith in his beloved motherland in his music even while he was a struggling musician abroad in Sweden. This epic piece chronicles his transformation from being an entertainer and a superstar to being a musical activist after he learnt about his own personal tragedy, that he had AIDS.
“Today It’s Me” is an exploration of courage, passion and tragedy, featuring Philly Lutaaya’s exotic, riveting music with Molosi singing his renditions of Lutaaya’s biggest hits such as “Diana” and “Alone and Frightened.”
Molosi wrote the show in consultation with Lutaaya’s own family – “It was during the time I was performing Seretse in Uganda last year…Between rehearsals I wrote a lot, and one of the things I wrote was a script about Philly Lutaaya. His brother, Abraham Lutaaya graciously helped me and gave me a lot of information like Philly’s videos and pictures. And now I am in communication with Lutaaya’s children. I just want to make sure that I am sensitive enough because this is not just a hero but a real person who lived, someone’s father.”
“Everyone should know about Lutaaya! He saved so many lives. He was the first prominent African to publicly say that he was HIV Positive. He gave a human face to AIDS.”
Megamenu Social