Bamako, is Simphiwe Dana’s fifth album, having released Zandisile (2004), The One Love Movement on Bantu Biko Street (2006), Kulture Noir (2010) and Firebrand (2015) – prior to Bamako (2020). This recent release is an album of labour and tears after Simphiwe spent 20 hours per day for two years to gift it to us….
Red Bull and Dear Ribane — the family collective made up of siblings Manthe, Tebogo and Kokona Ribane — teamed up in collaboration to dive into their approach and guiding philosophies when putting together a live show, thus offering viewers insight into the strategies of creation that guide them when curating a performance. There is…
Exploring various mediums in both sonic and visual spheres, with overlap in the form of video, VR and performance has been the creative and thematic nexus of visual artist and music producer Fred Clarke, however, working under the pseudonym Mathroom. Clarke’s artistic outputs and interrogations under the alias of Mathroom are made manifest both through…
Cape Town based singer-songwriter, Red Robyn – who also makes up part of The World of Bird’s ensemble – released her single titled “Got me”, this past Friday. The catchy and deceptively lighthearted track will form part of what will be a trilogy EP, called Girls wear Pink. The EP title is — I am…
Its first sonic utterances settle into one’s auditory receptors slowly… Taking their time, they work their way into greeting and welcoming you into the world built by the sonic landscapes and textures that are too follow like a meticulously crafted establishing shot for a piece of beautiful Japanese film. Cinematic in it’s very essence the…
The children of “Mkokotelo” nation are back with a new two track single release set to bless our ears next week Monday with “Pikachu Freestyle” and “Bus Boy”. The beginnings and crystallisation of Stiff Pap’s performative and eternally playful — almost laastig — yet, still politically radical identity was formed before the utterance of their first…
Born into a family blues band, one could say that music forms a part of Roxy Caroline‘s DNA; brick and mortar of her very essence. Most of what she learnt with regards to it, the artist absorbed while in the womb and continues to sharpen and expand on her craft in various articulations. Roxy also…
Cape Town originating and based four piece band, The World of Birds, have released a music video for their pocket full of sunshine single titled “Open Up”. The band which was originally known as Nic Preen & the World of Birds, is fronted by Preen who also forms part of Al Bairre’s ensemble. The song…
While the exact moment when the two connected is difficult to pinpoint — with it having have occurred either at a recording session with a well known South African rapper or at a Mashayabuque show — this, depending on who you ask that is. What is clear is that producer/rapper Suup Zulu and rapper Kobayashi…
Writing about The Weeknd’s new album After Hours on the grey, overcast Day 5 of the national lockdown feels deeply incongruous. Everything about The Weeknd’s music – its hedonism, its cinematic decadence and its alienated depictions of drug abuse and twisted relationships – feels the very antithesis of this plague. Since the release of the…
This year has been quite something already and no, I’m not talking about all the disasters that you can read about in the newspaper or on your social feeds. I’m talking about all the remarkable, progressive, creative, genre-breaking sounds that have been coming out of the Southern tip of Africa in 2020. More and more,…
Darkie Fiction sound like they were destined to make music together. They’re one of those acts where everything just seamlessly clicks and you can tell that there exists between the duo, a bond that expands beyond your typical musical outfit. Before rapper Katt Daddy and songstress Yoza Mnyanda came upon each other by chance in…
