From the Archive: Heavy Metal In Botswana

Taking a look at the "death metal cowboys" of Botswana and more.

As our archive keeps growing, some of our older pieces might have gotten lost in the shuffle. Every now and then we'll dig in and find some highlights and revisit them. Here's one now.

When you think of African music, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Heavy metal? Yeah, probably not. But it's there. If you doubt it, check out this article from a metal magazine that looks at metal bands from Togo, Ghana, South Africa, Madagascar, and more.

Including Overthrust, from Botswana. They're featured in the first video here, a short documentary. A second short video here looks at the "death metal cowboys" of Botswana. So-called because there are a lot of cattle ranchers in the country and many heavy metal kids there sport cowboy hats along with their black leather.

But that’s not all. There’s more on Botswanan metal in this nicely illustrated article and from the travel sites Adventure.com and Lonely Planet.

Bang your head!