For Dr. Boitumelo Taukobong, music has never been separate from who she is. Known professionally as Tumi TAU, the medical doctor, singer and songwriter has spent years developing her voice while building a career in medicine. Now, with the release of her debut single, Metsi, she is beginning to share a side of herself that has been present for much longer than her solo career suggests.
Her musical foundation started in primary school through choral singing and continued into university, where she joined a music society and surrounded herself with other musicians, new perspectives and a community that encouraged musical excellence. From there, Tumi TAU spent years working as a background vocalist, performing alongside other artists and gaining experience on Johannesburg’s live music stages.
Those years gave her more than performance experience. They taught her to take music seriously, to understand the technical side of singing and to approach every performance with intention. After spending time supporting other artists, stepping forward as a solo performer meant trusting everything she had learned and allowing her own voice to take center stage.
“For me, the music comes first, and the genre can follow.”
She describes herself as explorative, honest and relatable, drawing from the world around her and from real experiences rather than trying to fit into a particular mould. For her, the music comes first, and everything else follows.
Metsi, which means “water” in Setswana, emerged during a period when she was finding her way back to music after taking a short break. She had been going through a difficult season and needed time to restore herself. During that period, water became a recurring source of comfort, particularly the feeling of floating and being able to surrender rather than constantly trying to control what was happening around her. When her producer sent her the beat, she immediately recognised something familiar in its sound. It carried the same calm and fluidity she had associated with water, giving her a starting point from which to explore what she had been experiencing.
The song became a reflection of the many sides of water. It can be gentle and soothing, but it can also be powerful and destructive. It moves, cleanses and renews. Those qualities gave Tumi TAU a way to process the different emotions she was navigating, turning Metsi into a story about distress, release, renewal and ultimately finding her way back to herself.
That idea of healing also connects naturally to her life in medicine. She does not view her career as a choice between two opposing worlds. In fact, she sees medicine and music as different ways of engaging with the same human experience. Medicine allows her to approach healing through science, while music gives her the freedom to explore healing through emotion, expression and connection.
The difference, perhaps, is that music allows people to bring their own experiences to the same song. She has already seen this through the responses to Metsi, with listeners finding their own meaning in what she created. For her, that is part of what makes both music and medicine so interesting: there is no single approach that works exactly the same way for everyone.
At the heart of Metsi is a lesson she learned during her own pause from music. She had initially stepped away because she needed restoration, only to discover that the silence itself became part of her journey back. Rather than forcing her return, she allowed herself the time she needed, and eventually the music found its way back to her.
“I hope this song reminds us that sometimes the best resolution is surrender,” she says, reflecting on what she hopes listeners take from the song. “Not every battle requires an active fighting spirit. It is a fitting message for a debut that came from a season of learning how to slow down. Metsi does not try to offer a perfect answer to difficult moments. Instead, it creates space for the listener to sit with them, move through them and, when necessary, let go.
For Tumi TAU, this is only the beginning of discovering what her music can become. She is not interested in rushing to define it. Having spent years learning, performing and finding her way back to music, she is allowing herself the same freedom that shaped Metsi in the first place: to move, explore and see where the journey takes her.