“You’re on in five minutes,” Sandra says.

“Yoh, I can’t believe this, I need the toilet again!” I’m jiggling around like it’s urgent. “I thought that diet drink tasted funny…I’ll go wait offstage the moment I’m done. Hope I can get through without needing to go again.”

I’m running to the roll-up door behind the stage. If someone is minding it, I might need to pull a Big Star act like I’ve seen others do.

I needn’t worry. The door is open, and the oldish man sitting on a plastic chair is more interested in someone being sick outside, so my waiting friends can rush in when I signal to them.

I catch sight of Gaone standing over the young woman who’s being sick.

“Let’s go,” I say to Kgadi and the other two who are carrying their instruments; the man on door duty looks at us at the last second, so I wave my hand like a diva and call out, “Special fans.”

“Hawu, girl, what are you wearing?” Kgadi demands, running beside me as I lead the way to where I left my backpack.

There isn’t time or privacy to change properly, so I pull my yoga flares and top on over the latest scraps of material Sandra and Gaone have chosen.

The other singer is coming off, to what sounds like half-hearted applause and a few crude calls and some boos. There isn’t time to get into the sneakers I’ve brought, so I kick off my silly fuzzy ankle boots with their pompoms, and decide to do this barefoot. The final thing I do is grab a handful of wet wipes from the pack I brought, and get rid of most of the rainbow mess on my face.

Then we’re running on stage. The one thing I can’t be sure of is the audience. If they’re here for Bitsy-D…No, let them be hoping for some good music or just ready to party.

Up here, all I see is a blur of people, and maybe that’s better than seeing disappointed or angry faces.

I grab the mic and we get into the first song fast, something I wrote when I was still attending school. Yonayona is plucking at her kalimba, Watson squats behind his bongos, and Kgadi is beatboxing as fiercely as ever.

I hear a few shouts of surprise or anger, but there’s also this sort of ripple of something moving through the audience, so I pour everything of myself into the song.

No one throws anything, and they’re clapping, calling, and whistling by the time I reach the end.

In that moment I hear Sandra shouting from beside the stage.

“What the hell are you doing? Stop this, Bitsy-D—”

Ignoring her, I face the audience and speak into the mic.

“I’m not Bitsy-D, I’m Dintletse,” I tell them, “and the only shortening OK with me is Dintle. I’m not a child, I’m a young woman, I’m 17, I’m sober and in my right mind. This is me, and these are my songs.”

And now I’m singing the new song I wrote. It tells of being pathetic and pushed around, and then finding my strength, and my voice.

I’m singing my own song.

And they like me. The people out there are swaying to the rhythm, and at the end, there’s cheering, ululating, and stamping.

My friends and I high-five each other, and here’s Lefa coming towards me with his arms outstretched and open, his face lit with pride.

I catch sight of Sandra and Gaone standing offstage, their faces furious, but also puzzled, like they don’t understand what has happened.

I accept that things aren’t going to be easy, especially at home, but I think they know there’s no going back.

That’s the important thing, the only thing I need to know for now.

Tell us: Dintletse knows not everything will be easy going forward; what challenges and difficulties will she face?