BASSLINE FEST 2023, billing itself as the hottest annual Afro-Music Festival in Jozi returns

BY CityLIfe Arts Writer

Bassline Fest Celebrates Africa Day with  The Department of Sports Arts and Culture  in Association with Castle Lite on the 20th of May 2023 at Constitution Hill. 

Bassline Fest presents top artists from Mzansi and abroad. It is an Afropolitan Festival of live music showcasing the best of Africa’s  talent. Headlining the festivals are South African superstars Sjava and DBN Gogo alongside incredible international artists: Afrotronix the Afro-futuristic artist from Chad based in Canada, Scúru Fitchádu the funaná-punk artist from Cape Verde, raised in Portugal and from the beautiful Island of Reunion Fayazer the dance hall artist who’s coined his own style malotrap music. Watch this space as the excitement builds and more talent gets added to the bill.

“Bassline Fest is a day to look forward to as it is is a day to have fun, listen to incredible live music, eat scrumptious food from the Food trucks and stalls while shopping at the artisanal arts and craft market . ” Says co – organizer Paige Holmes of Bassline Live. 

Adds Brad Holmes of Bassline Live, “The Bassline Fest is set to be a day of music and celebration of our humanity, resilience and over-all incredible creativity and talent that our beautiful African Continent births. The lineup of artists reflect the inclusivity, diversity and tolerance that the city of Jozi inhabits. “

Gates to Bassline Fest open at 2pm and the festival runs till late. Tickets are available from Howler and Computicket with phase 1 of the Earlybird tickets starting at R250, phase 2 will kick in at R300 and phase 3 at R350. Tickets will then be R400 for anyone who missed out on 3 Earlybird opportunities. 

 “The Bassline Fest is grateful to its presenting partner the Department of Sport Arts & Culture for coming on-board in the support of the live music industry and in celebration of Africa Month, and its associate partner Castle Lite who are responsible for this years Bassline Fest taking place. Also supporting the Bassline Fest will be Music In Africa and the ACCESS conference. “What this support does is aid the live music industry as a whole as it creates work for the full live music industry eco-system from production, marketing, performing service providers and artists. It also creates a place for festival goers to escape while getting entranced by the artistic talent and to get entertained and have some fun!” says Brad Holmes.

SJAVA

Where it began…

Born Jabulani Hadebe in Bergville, KwaZulu in 1983, Sjava spent his early childhood in the rural outskirts of the beautiful Okhahlamba (Drakensburg) region, then later moved to Johannesburg where the city would mould him through his teenage years. These two very different worlds would leave a lasting imprint on Sjava, both as a man and an artist. Sjava’s break into the entertainment industry was, surprisingly, not in music but as a screen actor in several TV drama films and series such a Ugugu no Andile and Zone14.

In 2015, however, he would start attracting attention for his talent as vocalist following his feature on the hit song Ameni (Miss Pru). This would be the prequel to his phenomenal debut album Isina Muva (2016) where his skill of merging the two worlds residing in him (rural KwaZulu and urban Johannesburg) and creating, whatwas then, an emerging sound with elements of Maskandi, Scathamiya, Mbaqanga, Hiphop, Trap, RnB and Soul.

With this album, Sjava made South Africa sit up and pay attention to his vocal and writing skills. By the time he released his sophomore album Umqhele, in 2018, Sjava had been featured on the Kendrick Lamar-produced and Grammy-nominated Black Panther album and had received a BET Award for Best New International Act. In the same year, just months before the release of Umqhele, Sjava also released an EP, Umphako, which featured the hit single Abangani featuring erstwhile fellow stablemates and African Trap Movement (ATM) members, Emtee and Saudi Amongst other awards won, Umqhele went on to win the sought-after Album of the Year award at the 2017 South African Music Awards. This album also contained the smash hit uMama.

In 2020, Sjava launched 1020 Cartel, a record label he co-owns and that would be a platform for him and other artists to develop and grow the urban-Zulu genre of music which he was a part of pioneering back in 2015/2016. His first release under the new label was Umsebenzi, a four-track EP that soared to number 1 on the Apple Music album charts and stayed there for months. The EP contained the platinum-selling Umcebo which came about as a collaboration with UK-based producers Delayde Beats and Webmoms.

The EP also won best produced album at the 2021 SAMA Awards. Following the EP reaching gold status in early 2021, 5 new songs were added, creating the Umsebenzi Gold Deluxe album which was released in October 2021. Isibuko – a reflection and journey inward… Sjava’s 2023 offering, Isibuko, exposes a deeply introspective side to the Artist as he takes the listener on a journey of bare and raw emotions. In Isibuko, Sjava shares the private thoughts and emotions that have been the soundtrack to his life over the last three years and touches on various aspects of his life as both a man and an artist.

Musically on this album Sjava develops his sound and experiments with slower, deeper lo-fi elements as well as rich, live instrumentation that gives the album both body and depth. On production and instruments, Sjava works with his long-term producer and partner Ruff, Vuyo Manyike, who has also worked with Sjava since his debut album in 2016, as well as Delayde and Webmoms (UK, Umcebo). Featured artists include long-time ATM collaborators Emtee and Saudi, 1020 Cartel fam member Anzo and Maskandi heavyweights Shwi, Mzukulu, Inkos’yamagcokama and Dumakahle.

Sjava has also featured some leading ladies on the project in the form of the Afrotainment artist-duo the Qwabe Twins and the highly talented ‘bubbling under’ singer/songwriter Mzulu Phaqa. The foundations of the album were laid at a two-week album retreat in February 2022 at Antbear Lodge in the beautiful Okhahlamba mountains in northern KZN. It was here that Sjava, Ruff, Delayde, Webmoms and Vuyo Manyike spent day and night conceptualizing the essence of the project and recording the initial music and vocals for the album.

The rest of 2022 was dedicated to chiselling and refining the music, until it was finally completed in December.

The Isibuko release was announced at the Sjava Live in Durban concerts (9 & 10 December 2022) where the audience was given a sneak-peak into the project with a live performance of the song Amavaka, for which both Delayde and Webmoms travelled to South Africa to perform with Sjava. Isibuko is live on all digital platforms.

AFROTRONIX

Afrotronix is a universe, a vision that points to Afrofuturism. Electronic music mastering a strong African soul. 

African fashion, African urban dance performances and digital art. 

Afrotronix’s electro Saharan blues, this is a new wave in the Afrobeat and it is here right now and it’s tinged with Chadian saï, Senegalese mbalax, Haitian kompas, West African Mandingo roots and electric Touareg blues, transported on a juggernaut loaded with deep house, dubstep and techno grooves driven by Chadian guitarist Caleb Rimtobaye. The Montreal-based producer formed Afrotronix in 2014 as a concept encompassing an afro futuristic approach of electronic music production. By 2016 they were headlining the Afropunk festival in Paris.

Since then Afrotronix has toured in North and South America, Europe and Africa, releasing a critically-acclaimed album and numerous music videos. Rimtobaye’s mission is to use his music as a medium to carry a Pan-African message, showcasing a different image of Africa to the world and also bringing it back home as attested by recent large-scale performances in Chad. Wearing the DOM, the helmet, symbole of an actualized ancestral knowledge, the band uses Djing, live singing and instrumentation,  to bring electric guitare melodies, forcefull Drum and glitchy percs set up to fire the performance. The band believes that our voice as artist is meaningful for societal change. 

Actively teaching to the AI and its digital structures how to speak the language of our African elders, Afrotronix has won several international prizes including best artist at the Hollywood and African Prestigious Awards (2022), best African electro (2019) and best African DJ (2018) at the All Africa Music Awards. 

 Afrotronix’s music and art appeal to the people who want to redefine an Africanity that leads to a bright future. 

AFROTRONIX 13 AWARDS: 

HOLLYWOOD AND AFRICAN PRESTIGIOUS AWARDS (2022) – Best International Music Artist

PRESTIGIOUS HAITIAN MUSIC AWARDS (2022) – International Artist of the year

HEALT4PEACE LOS ANGELES (2022) – Diaspora Award

DTW MUSIC AWARDS (2022) – Best artist in the Diaspora

ASSOCIATION CHADIAN NATIONALS IN QUEBEC (2022) – Best Chadian musican artist in Canada

HAITIAN MUSIC AWARDS (2021)  – Best International artist of the Year 

CHAD AWARDS (2021) – Citizen of the Year Award in Chad and internationally // Award for the best Chadian artist 

AFRIMA (All African Music Award)  (2019) – Best African Act in the Diaspora // Best African Electro 

AFRIMA (All African Music Award) (2018) Best African DJ  

SOCAN CANADA (2018) Hardy Hagood Award

CANADIAN BLACK ARTIST AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE (2019) – Dynasty – Best Artist  

 SCURU FITCHADU

A FURIOUS RITUAL OF LIBERATION FROM SLAVERY, SCÚRU FITCHÁDU [DEEP DARK IN CAPE VERDEAN CREOLE] IS RAGE AND FIGHT.

Scúru Fitchádu represents a direct reference to both the cape verdean music and african matrix, within an punk aesthetic and disruptive electronics where are aligned influences and crossings so disparate from different musical universes.

His groundbreaking live performances in clubs and festivals all over Portugal followed to international presentations. In January 2020, he released the first full-length entitled “Un Kuza Runhu” [A Bad Thing], earning its place on the list of the best portuguese albums released that same year by specialized media, who still considered Scúru as one of the freshest and most vital projets of this era.

“Nez Txada skúru dentu skina na braku fundu” is a conceptual album which was inspired by the revolutionary pro-African independence movements, their interventions, guidelines, and cultural legacies, establishing a conducting line to a poetic interpretation of the current urban spectrum. This 11 track record, whose sound aspires to a more experimental level, has a strong focus on orality, with subversive and protest rhetoric. From griots to riots Afrohardbass poetic violence.