60 ARTISTS. 4 DAYS. 1 CITY.
This September, Johannesburg joins Tokyo, Vienna, Warsaw and Stockholm as a host city for the world renowned Red Bull Music Academy Weekender. For the first time, Jozi will experience the scale and diversity which earned this festival a place in the global music festival calendar.
Join us from the 1st to the 4th of September for over 60 local, African and international acts across seven venues including club nights, live music, exhibitions, lectures, workshops and cultural music experiences.
Moonchild knows who to check out at RBMA Weekender
One of the most exciting emergent stars in the regional music landscape – and one of the jewels in the lineup for this weekend’s RBMA Weekender Jozi – is certainly Moonchild Sanelly. As she grows through, and flits between, her multiple disciplines of poetry, dance, fashion design and cutting edge pop musicianship, she seems to be continuing the trend of the musical mainstream’s acclimatisation to slightly left-ish sounds (admittedly amongst the almost inescapable wash of Amero-centric trap-drenched hip hop). Most of that can be credited to Moonchild’s childhood in the limelight in PE and her background in jazz, kwaito and hip hop, but can surely also be credited to her excellent choice of collaborators and the kind of artists she surrounds herself with, whether it’s hanging out and designing one-offs for Lady $kollie to her collaborations with Tshepang Ramoba and Maramza. Her music itself speaks deeply and absolutely sincerely about social ills – covering inept policing, condomising and eating disorders, amongst many other things – through supremely accessible, playful and upbeat kwaito/bubblegum-pop rhythms and light, earworm melodies.
