TRUE MUSIC AFRICA

From hip-shaking beats to sonically engineered-for the-dancefloor bangers Cape Town was a city buzzing with emerging sounds and incredible artists. Our first stop on our tour  kicked off with a line up heavy on hip-hop, gqom, funk, disco and soul provided by headliner Dope Saint Jude with support from DJ Lyle MC Youngsta CPT, K-$ and Aux Womdantso.

In a country that was receiving little interest from major record labels we travelled to Cameroon to highlight the country’s blossoming, independent music scene.

At a secret location, we brought together an eclectic mix of afro-trap, rap and afro-R&B sounds to the stage and made this one of our most popular global live streams to date.

Artists included: Locko, Askia, Boy TAG and DJ Labastille Premier

In Nairobi DIY truly means Do It Yourself. A city that moves to its own rhythm has a burgeoning self-made music scene we hero-ed the country’s finest trailblazers and unique music hustlers with a party that was streamed live to the world introducing a global audience to #NuNairobi, a technicolour musical frenzy cutting across rap-fused electronica, R&B and club sounds.

Line up: EA Wave, Taio, Suraj, DJ Coco Em and Muthoni Drummer Queen

We returned to South Africa and it went off. Simple as that.  Boiler Room x Ballantine’s Johannesburg event blessed us with the best home-grown talent who headlined a party so vibrant it had the whisky flowing and the dancefloor shaking from start to finish. We pulled together a high-octane list of local artists, all of whom firmly have their finger on the pulse of the city.

As Joburg’s emerging talent took control of the night, they showcased a set that combined traditional genres- kwaito, gqom and afrohouse- with exciting new experimental sounds, putting the South African sounds into a new genre defying dimension of tunes.

Line up: DJ Maphorisa, Symatics, Da Capo, Moonchild and Uncle Partytime

The two-day event was also accompanied with a ‘Boiler Room x Ballantine’s True Music Forum’ bringing together talent from across the continent to discuss burgeoning topics influencing and affecting Africa’s music industry at that time.

Six months later and we returned to South Africa to the subtropical Highveld metropolis that is Pretoria.  In the Capital City house is king, with international DJs and locals alike heading there since the 90s for its goldmine of four-to-the-floor beats.

This was the perfect way to say goodbye to South Africa for the penultimate True Music Africa show.

Line up: Oskido, Kat La Kat, DJ Raybel, Lamiez Holworthy JD Monate & Mapentane