As noted in a discussion on the cultural value of Hip Hop on Oxford University’s Arts Blog, Hip hop as a musical and global cultural form forces us to think critically about what we define as valuable knowledge, who we recognise as knowledge producers, and how knowledge can be created and shared. The study and…
Just over a year ago, a new home for music and creativity opened it’s massive wooden sliding door in Durban’s Rivertown precinct. While most of the Rivertown “urban renewal” project in Durban has pretty much failed, with spaces that were promised to become cultural hubs, like 8 Morisson and ‘The Shed’, laying dormant, there’s a…
With the release of his first international album, Everyone’s Just Winging It and Other Fly Tales, Kenyan producer and performing artist Blinky Bill brings together his various influences and experiences that have shaped this multifaceted artist. Raised in Nairobi, the soundtrack of his youth featured his mom’s religious songs and dad’s vintage Congolese sounds. Later on,…
Contemporary German music has gained an international reputation for experimentation and elegant precision. In the 1970s, Krautrock artists like Can, Neu! and Faust made wild psychedelic rock that exploded the limits of human consciousness. As the Berlin Wall was falling, the city was pumping out techno that perfectly captured the alluring alienation of modern life….
According to his own press kit, Omar Morto is having the best year of his career, and it’s easy to see why. While Omar has been instrumental in building the careers of others through his role as a producer on Good Hope FM, and with his label [CAPECLUB], lately Omar has been taking big steps…
It’s weird, I don’t know if Bubblegum Club readers would already know who Kaien Cruz is. Like, you should, she’s been all over radio and TV, but maybe you don’t listen to radio and don’t watch TV, so maybe you’re out of the loop and you’re missing out? Maybe you don’t know that Kaien featured…
“We all worked together to create a mythical story within the imagined universe of ‘Furies’, inspired by the idea of ‘Thaumogenesis’: a process through which a demon is believed to be created as a by-product of a resurrection technique. When a resurrection ritual takes place, two holes are created, and two spiritual entities may enter the…
“My music is death music. My beats have this dark, heavy atmosphere, but I don’t think that darkness is a negative thing”. Sipping a juice on a sunny Friday afternoon, rapper and beatmaker Lanii Clouds is explaining the philosophy behind his prolific body of work. Since 2013, the Johannesburg based artist has been releasing a…
Named after and created thanks to encouragement from his mother, Thor Rixon’s latest album “Michele” sees the Cape Town-based producer explore dance music for the first time. “My mom loves dance music and for ages she wanted me to make dance music, so I thought why not give it a go, ended up falling in…
The goal of feminism is to move toward gender equality and/or justice for people of all genders. To this end, feminism investigates and challenges the forces that cause injustice or inequality. However, those forces are not the same for all womxn, because forces of oppression (sexism, racism, classism etc.) intersect – cue intersectional feminism. TBH…
South London singer and rapper Elheist is on a mission. Specifically, she says she is “currently in the prime of the rebirth of my desired me”. Her medium is an intriguing blend of all kinds of UK underground sounds- grime, garage, cutting edge experimental production- with their raw edges smoothed over by her honeyed vocals….
Johannesburg-based spoken-word artist Lazarus Mathebula, better known by his stage name The Lazarusman, has been releasing music since 2010, making his debut alongside Martin Stimming. First introduced to poetry in school, it was his teachers who encouraged him to pursue writing and performing, as they noticed he had a talent for the art. “[My teachers]…
