Artists

This exciting experimental collaboration, only recently established in 2011, is one of its kind, lead by talented Zanzibari musician and composer Juma Begu. The tandaa is a traditional flute, similar to the zumari. It is typically played alongside ngoma drums in the island’s umundi dance, used to purge evil spirits.   As read more

Thaïs Diarra is a nu-soul singer with roots in Mali and Senegal. She was born in Switzerland, to a music-loving mother and a bass-playing father. Since Thaïs’ early years, music was a refuge, a moral recourse to the racial prejudgement and questions about her mixed race identity. In her youth read more

From the very beginning, Thandiswa Mazwai has always been at the forefront of change. Born in the rural homeland of Transkei, she grew up in Soweto during the '80s, as part of the “Soweto generation”, who witnessed the violent dismantling of apartheid and the growth of a free South Africa. read more

The Brother Moves On is an experimental collective from Johannesburg, South Africa, mixing rock, Xhosa funk, jazz, folk, electronic, dance and spoken word for the post-apartheid age. Uncategorisable, they prefer to think of themselves as post-genre. The group was founded in 2010 by multi-disciplinary artist Nkululeko Mthembu. They read more

For millennia the Nile has sowed lands of human, ecological, and cultural beauty. Weaving together Egyptian and Ethiopian modal systems, the polyrhythmic styles of Lake Victoria with the influence of the Mediterranean, patient melodies of the deserts and pointed melodies of the highlands, the river's 4,200 miles yield a wide read more

Inspired by Fela Anikulapo Kuti's Lagos club, The Shrine, and the rebirth of Afrobeat brought about by Fela's untimely death in 1997, the Shrine DJ Posse have been lobbing their lightning bolt of Afrosubversion into London nightlife for many years and their Rebel Music mission continues.   The Afrocentric Roots 'n' Digital read more