Monexus / Michael Poncana South African Artist / Est. Jwaneng 1986
Michael Poncana / Monexus

156 RELEASES. ONE IMPOSSIBLE MIND.

Music, law, international relations and AI products. Built as one connected body of work.

Monexus at the console, photographed for his Wikipedia article
Monexus at the console. Wikimedia Commons.
A LIVING BODY OF WORK
0Releases
0Tracks
0Official videos
2015-2026Archive span

Tonight's feature.

One song, one video, one story. A new catalogue cut takes over at midnight.

Album & Single of the Day

Two more rotations, drawn from the full 2015-2026 catalogue.

Play the archive.

Every cover is a doorway. Move through 156 releases, hear available previews and open the full story.

001 / 156 2015-2026
RELEASE

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MONEXUS

Tracks1
Position001
Catalogue156
Release window 001-011

Find your way in.

Search by title, jump across years, isolate full projects or shuffle into something unexpected.

Choose a year

The Theatre.

Every official video, embedded straight from the channel. Click to play.

Jwaneng → Gaborone → South Africa → Warsaw → The World

The story.

Composing at nine. Law at university. Beats at the console. Agents in production. One thread: making things that didn't exist.

Monexus at the console
Wikipedia · Early career portrait
Born
Nov 16, 1986 · Jwaneng, Botswana
Identity
South African · dual citizen SA + Botswana
School
Northside Primary, Gaborone - Reception, 1992
First composition
Age 9 (1995) - still at Northside
Instruments
Piano (grandfather-taught), recorder, marimba
Education
Law (SA) · Media, Diplomacy & IR (Warsaw)
Languages
English, Setswana, Polish
Label
Monexus (self-owned, via DistroKid)
1992

Northside - the beginning

Enrols at Northside Primary School, Gaborone - Reception class, age five. Seven years at Northside: it's where the piano (grandfather-taught), the recorder, the marimba band and the first songs all happen. The archive starts here.

1995

First songs - age nine

Still at Northside: composes his first songs at age nine. Learns piano from his grandfather; joins the school orchestra on recorder and the marimba band. Grows up on The Offspring, J Dilla, The Neptunes, Timbaland, Zero 7.

2009

First professional credit

Co-produces Botswana rapper KEB's debut single Botsa Ka Nna with producer B.R.U.N.O - while still in school.

2011

DbS7 - the chakra years

Begins the DbS7 mixtape series, seven volumes mapped to the seven chakras. Recording engineer on Tuks Senganga's album Footprints. Volumes 1-4 land this year.

2012-14

Engineering for the scene

DbS7 Volumes 5-6. Sessions and engineering work across the Gaborone scene, including tracks on Da L.E.S's North God.

2015

The breakout year

DbS7 Vol. 7 The Crown (Feb) + Deluxe (Nov). Debut album 7 Of Cups (Aug) - signed by Sheer Music for publishing. Collaborative album Warm Plates: Lost Tapes with Nigerian rapper Damola (Nov). Second solo album Heat July Cold (Nov). Three albums in four months.

2016-18

Law & the long build

Law degree in South Africa - thesis on digital copyright; completes articles (legal apprenticeship) at a South African firm, chooses not to practise. Keeps recording: MANDY era, Purpleswank 420 series begins.

2018

Warsaw - a new chapter

Moves to Poland. Begins seven years of teaching English across in-person and online classrooms - curriculum design, bilingual EN/PL materials, business English. The human version of the systems he now automates.

2022-25

International relations, Warsaw

Collegium Civitas - Media, Diplomacy & International Relations. Thesis: "Manufacturing Influence in the Digital Age: U.S. vs. China Soft Power, Strategic Narratives, and Algorithmic Propaganda (2020-2024)." Studies the machinery of influence while running an AI newsroom on the side.

2019-24

The catalogue deepens

Relentless output: Mandela Tapes, Heat July Cold II, the Scuderia Desiderio sessions, Balisa Chumani with KEB - 84 releases across six years while studying, teaching and building tech.

2025-26

The Remix Renaissance + AI studio

Founds Monexus Media, an AI-operated product studio (PriceMate, themonexus newsroom, English Metro) - selected for the Hyperagent Founding 500. Music output accelerates to a release every ~5 days: 72 releases in 2026 alone, the Purpleswank Remix programme with SanzaSigns, KMWize & Bee.

The vault.

Four ways to put the catalogue to work - machine-payable streams, one-stop sync, pre-cleared stems, patronage.

The writing.

What 156 titles say when you read them as one document - and where the lyrics live.

Seven chakras, one harvest - reading the catalogue

The catalogue is not 156 accidents. Read end to end, it's one long argument about appetite and discipline. The DbS7 series (2011→) maps seven volumes onto the seven chakras - a teenager engineering sessions in Gaborone, structuring a mixtape series like an esoteric syllabus. That's the tell: the work was always conceptual before it was commercial.

The 2015 trilogy - DbS7 Vol. 7: The Crown, 7 Of Cups, Heat July Cold - lands inside four months. Tarot's seven cups: imagination, illusion, options chosen and refused. It's the year the archive becomes self-aware, the year Sheer Music signs the publishing. Then law school during the MANDY era: the lawyer and the artist training in parallel, on purpose.

The late catalogue runs hot and systematic at once - 72 releases in 2026 alone, the Purpleswank Remix Programme reworking the canon like case law: precedent, dissent, fresh judgment. City postcards (Somewhere in Warsaw), star-sign storytelling (Gemini), refusal-as-anthem (No Martyr). A lawyer-turned-producer running an AI studio, releasing every five days - the discography is the diary.

Sync · Masters · Partnerships · Bookings

Licensing & business.

One-stop clearance across a 156-release catalogue. The lawyer-turned-producer handles the paperwork himself.

Sync licensing

Film, TV, advertising, trailers, games. cleared in one call - both sides of the song.

  • Master use + publishing in one stop
  • Stems & instrumentals on request
  • Custom edits / re-records for briefs
Start a sync enquiry ↗

Sample clearance

Want to flip something from the catalogue? Clean chain of title, fast turnaround.

  • Writer & publisher approvals handled
  • Split agreements drafted in-house
  • Law-trained - contracts that hold
Clear a sample ↗

Partnerships

Labels, brands, agencies, platforms. From single-track placements to catalogue-wide deals.

  • Distribution & admin publishing
  • Brand collaborations & commissions
  • Catalogue acquisition conversations
Talk partnerships ↗

Bookings & appearances

Producer sets, speaking (copyright × AI × music), panels, workshops.

  • Live & DJ sets with full tech rider
  • Keynotes: the lawyer-producer view
  • Global - SA · BW · EU based rosters
Book him ↗

The paperwork - what exists, what ships on request

BMI AFFILIATED
ItemStatusNotes
PRO affiliationBMI (writer & publisher)Performing rights covered US-first, collected worldwide via reciprocal societies (incl. SAMRO region)
Masters100% owned - MonexusSelf-owned label, delivered via DistroKid; 156 releases, chain of title clean
Publishing - catalogueSelf-published (admin on request)One-stop clearance direct with the writer
Publishing - 7 Of Cups (2015)Sheer MusicDebut-album publishing signed to Sheer Music (2015); that title clears through them, everything else direct
ISRC / UPC manifestFull registerPer-release codes held; export shipped on request
Splits & collaborationsDocumentedfeat./co-writer splits (Purpleswank, KMWize, SanzaSigns, KEB, Damola…) on file
Cue sheets & metadata packOn requestBMI-ready cue sheets, WAV/MP3 + metadata + artwork archive per release
Stems / instrumentalsOn requestAvailable for sync briefs and remix commissions

Clearance desk: [email protected] · Typical turnaround: sync quotes within 48h, paperwork within a week. Catalogue verified against Apple Music, Deezer & DistroKid.

The same mind builds records, arguments and systems.

Michael's advantage is synthesis: legal precision, geopolitical analysis, musical instinct and production-grade AI.

Music productionDigital copyrightInternational relationsAI systems
South Africa / Legal research

Copyright at the point of rupture.

A law thesis on digital copyright, written while file-sharing dismantled one industry and streaming assembled another.

That training now protects 156 releases, clean splits and a self-owned label.
Warsaw / Collegium Civitas

Power inside the algorithmic feed.

Media, Diplomacy and International Relations, focused on U.S. and Chinese soft power, narratives and algorithmic propaganda.

The research became a practical lens for newsrooms, agents and public information systems.

Research that ships.

Not concept work. Live products, active datasets and software operating in the real world.

The Vault.

YouTube-era originals and collaborations from before distribution - the raw catalogue that everything else grew from.

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Releases Archived
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Albums & Projects
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Releases in 2026
11yr
2013 - 2026