“I always had headphones on and I always knew I wanted to make music”, Ikonika told me. I sat down with the London-based electronic musician, producer, and DJ last week at KCB Braamfontein, where she and the Pussy Party posse were embarking on a nation-wide dancefloor revolution: a series of femme insurgencies to shake up…
This week we visited new media artist Simphiwe Xulu, aka Mr MediaX, at Assemblage Studios to check out the beginnings of the logo he created with Sanele Omari Jali for the “I Make Africa’ project being hosted in Harare. We also share some behind the scenes footage from our latest cover shoot with the talented…
Tell our readers more about you and your journey as a rapper? I was born and bred in Gugulethu township, Cape Town. What you need to know mainly is that Ill Skillz is my foundation, the inception of Ill Skillz became a catapult for everything that has shaped up for me as an artist to…
If you want to get good at something, you have to do it a lot. The cliche is to say something like 10 000 hours of practice but putting out 52 remixes in a year isn’t a bad way to go about it either. Last year Big Space aka Montle Moorosi put out a remix…
Shamon Cassette , formerly known as Cerebral Vortex has been one of my favourite rappers ever since I discovered the internet and realized that the only interesting rappers were the ones who dint mind having HTML awe struck pen pals from third world continents. He’s a beacon of knowledge for all types of cool shit…
Conjured from smoke fumes, long nights, and worn-out feet, DJ Spoko and Matias Aguayo will be dropping a new EP on February 28th, titled Dirty Dancing. The music tastes of Southern Hemisphere fusions: the sweet velvet wallpaper lining Johannesburg’s Kitchener’s bar; the steam of a Cómeme night in Medellin, Cologne or Buenos Aires; the multi-rhythmic…
After a meticulous brainstorming session between Manteiga, the vocalist of the Pan-African collective, Batuk and director, Adriaan Louw, the captivating video for the Afro tech single “I Got You” in collaboration with the French Electro duo, LESKA, was shot in Johannesburg. The phrase “I got you” is charmingly echoed throughout the song, which captures the…
Birders of Durban feel shame no more. No longer shall Durban be known as the city with the world’s most annoying bird, the Indian Mynah, but instead, as the city that produced the songbird Red Robyn. Okay, so, Red Robyn is not red, or a Robin, or a bird at all. Obviously, why would I…
DJ’s write our nocturnal soundtracks. Spinning the energy in the room, they ease their audience in; build them up; hold them in suspense. They have us clawing for the next big drop, then reeling from the release. This week, I met with Siyabonga Sibeko (DJ Capital) to talk about the art of the DJ. In…
I’ll tell you one thing, Song’s From The Bath is a fucking trip. I’ll tell you some more things, I just felt like that was a good way to start. What else do you want to know? Is it a homage to Max Normal’s Songs From The Mall? No, no it is not. Did Thor…
Introducing our new feature: Bubblegum Club Stories. Each week we will put together a short video to let you know what has happened and what is happening in Johannesburg’s creative scene. We will be following creatives and giving you the scoop on what they are working on and what’s on their minds. We will be…
“The Siren’s Call” from producer Jumping Back Lash’s latest EP features Nonku Phiri. The video for this track provides the perfect mirror to the electrified melancholy in the sound. The opening silhouette of Nonku looking away from the viewer sets up a sense of longing and invokes a nostalgic mood. A grainy black and white…
