When apartheid’s planners sat down to figure out ways of keeping blacks away from whites, they dreamed up a fiction known as the Republic of Bophuthatswana and gave it a toy-town capital, Mmbatho.

Lucas Mangope became president of the Bophuthatswana homeland in 1977 ... Despite his debut album, Insert Coin, receiving rave reviews, Notshi remained largely in the musical wilderness.

His illustrates a journey from the outskirts of a traditional village — Motsweding, in North West — to political stardom as the president of the Bophuthatswana homeland from 1977 to 1994.