Thandiswa Mazwai at Le Poisson Rouge

Thandiswa Mazwai is one of the most influential singers in South Africa and a self-described ‘rebel singer’. She began her career in 1996 with music groups Jack Knife and Bongo Maffin, one of the pioneering bands of the dance music genre Kwaito, a musical and cultural movement that originated in Soweto in the late 1980s and exploded into a celebration of the new freedom of post-apartheid South Africa in the 1990s. After six award-winning albums with Bongo Maffin, she ventured on to a solo career.

Sankofa (2024), her fourth and most recent solo release, was recorded in Johannesburg, Dakar, and New York...

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Thandiswa Mazwai is one of the most influential singers in South Africa and a self-described ‘rebel singer’. She began her career in 1996 with music groups Jack Knife and Bongo Maffin, one of the pioneering bands of the dance music genre Kwaito, a musical and cultural movement that originated in Soweto in the late 1980s and exploded into a celebration of the new freedom of post-apartheid South Africa in the 1990s. After six award-winning albums with Bongo Maffin, she ventured on to a solo career.

Sankofa (2024), her fourth and most recent solo release, was recorded in Johannesburg, Dakar, and New York. Sankofa is a Ghanaian Twi word meaning ‘to go back and fetch what has been left behind’. The making of this work has embodied that idea, combining archival Xhosa samples (sourced from the International Library of African Music at Rhodes University), jazz, and west African music. The album includes songs produced by Meshell Ndegeocello, Chris Bruce, Nduduzo Makhathini, and Thandiswa. In a 5-star review, Songlines magazine praised its “eleven wildly original songs”.

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