Where every story shapes the culture
Reporting, interviews and culture dispatches from every desk — organised to help you choose a story, not scan a wall of cards.
126 stories in this view — showing 1-18.
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“Only Like You Do” began as a slow acoustic song when Easy Freak were just getting started. A decade later, Dom Hurd and Jude Kenrick have rebuilt it with groove, live instrumentation and the confidence of the band they have become.
24 Aug 20265 min read
Featuring Indigo Stella, with additional vocals from Rashè and production by Wichi1080, “Jaded” takes TheLastLetter back towards the R&B roots of her earliest work through a relationship where intoxication seems to reveal a completely different person.
24 Aug 20263 min read
Within a day of Gentlewoman arriving, “I Only Look to You”, “Sweet Thing” and the title track were all inside Apple Music South Africa’s Top 10 — a striking response to music that succeeds through warmth, space and restraint rather than spectacle.
22 Aug 20266 min read
The original was already one of South Africa’s biggest hip-hop records. Then Nasty C’s unofficial C-Mix crossed one million YouTube views. By the time the official remix arrived, audiences had already made the case for it.
22 Aug 20261 min read
Four days after Scebi “Inkos’Yamagcokama” Dlamini’s death, “Lashona Ilanga” arrived. Within days, the Limit Nala and Sne Ntuli collaboration was No.1 on Spotify South Africa and leading YouTube’s local trending charts — powered by something algorithms cannot manufacture from scratch: community.
22 Aug 20266 min read
Their recorded relationship stretches from Vusi Mahlasela’s Naledi Ya Tsela in 2006 to Guy Buttery’s self-titled album a decade later. This September, two South African musical histories finally meet onstage.
22 Aug 20261 min read
Due on 28 August, We Will Dance turns a difficult personal season into Afro House, Afro Tech and soulful dance built around faith, resilience and the decision to keep moving.
22 Aug 20261 min read
From Davido on “Yebo” and “Nakupenda” to possible future work with Wizkid and Jorja Smith, TXC’s international collaborations increasingly look less like outside validation and more like artists entering a South African musical world the duo already knows how to lead.
22 Aug 20261 min read
Days after You, Me & The 90’s won Best R&B/Soul Album at SAMA32, lordkez links with Kwesta on “4SHO” — a collaboration that feels less like a victory lap than the beginning of something bigger.
21 Aug 20264 min read
On uMgaranto II, K.Keed and Orish turn isiXhosa storytelling, township humour, old South African advertising and the texture of growing up in the kasi into a record that treats local memory as something worth archiving.
19 Aug 20266 min read
For the Zimbabwean-born, South Africa-raised singer-songwriter, “run boy” was once connected to fear and survival. His new single turns those words into an intimate meditation on movement, belonging and the decision to keep going.
19 Aug 20263 min read
After years apart in London and Amsterdam, Martin Kabamba and Riccardo Amatucci have revived the Johannesburg-born electronic project with “Holiday” — a song from their early catalogue that never entirely left South Africa behind.
19 Aug 20266 min read
After years of becoming one of South African music’s most recognisable featured voices, Rowlene is entering a different frame as Some Strings Attached, international recognition and an upcoming Johannesburg album launch place her firmly at the centre.
18 Aug 20265 min read
Rapsody’s fifth studio album, God Gotta Afro & Gold Hoops, was shaped partly in Johannesburg, with Nomsa Mazwai and Soweto’s Karabo Ya Morena carrying South African voices directly into the project.
18 Aug 20265 min read
A new partnership gives Beatlab members discounted access to six Soul Candi Institute of Music courses, connecting production, theory, music business and performance training inside one creator-focused ecosystem.
15 Aug 20267 min read
The American alternative R&B artist has never performed in South Africa, yet Johannesburg has become her strongest listening city. With “Touch” and If I’m Being Honest, MALIA is beginning to understand what that unexpected connection could become.
12 Aug 20265 min read
Oskido’s major honours do not read like a closing chapter. From the Metro FM Lifetime Achievement Award to the Order of Ikhamanga in Silver, they recognise a builder whose influence is still moving through South African music.
11 Aug 20264 min read
From Abathwebuli Trio’s restless African jazz language to Louis Mhlanga’s four-decade guitar history and Herbie Tsoaeli’s commanding bass work, Jazz at Jozi Gold is turning August into a celebration of South African jazz as a living, evolving tradition.
11 Aug 20265 min read