Diary: Mikhaela Faye releases Gaslighter, Basha Uhuru Freedom Festival kicks off in June and award winning play The Hyena's Tuckshop at The Market Theatre
Foretaste: Mikhaela Faye's recent EP comes ahead of a new album.
Press play on Mikhaela's new track and feel the fire
Cape Town's genre-bending alt-pop rebel Mikhaela Faye is back with Gaslighter, a punk-tinged breakup anthem that's equal parts catharsis and chaos.
Drenched in early-2000s nostalgia — think Avril Lavigne, Blink-182, Sum 41 — the track flips the script on toxic love with sugary hooks and just enough bite.
Born from a long-overdue 'aha!' moment after dating a narcissist, Gaslighter is the first time Mikhaela says she could write about the experience without being consumed by rage.
Produced with Josh Berry of Honeymoan in a game-like creative process, the song captures that perfect mix of unfiltered emotion and playfulness.
It's the first taste of her upcoming EP I'm Bored, which she describes as 'hyperactive escapism' — a wild, fast-paced sonic ride.
Since the more introspective days of her debut Not Now Later, Mikhaela's sound has exploded.
Gaslighter is streaming everywhere now.
Be at this freedom festival – entry is free!
Johannesburg's most dynamic celebration of youth, creativity and culture returns as Constitution Hill's Basha Uhuru Freedom Festival and kicks off its 2025 edition with fresh energy and an expanded programme.
Since 2012, Basha Uhuru has honoured the spirit of 1976 while empowering today's youth.
Anchored by the theme Celebrating The Legacy Of Creative Expression, this year's festival marks Youth Month with a powerful mix of inspiration, learning and connection through The Creative Conference.
Don't miss the electrifying Amapiano Africa Summit on 28 June, now in its third edition, spotlighting one of SA's most influential music movements through workshops, panels and live performances.
The Films of Freedom showcase takes over the Women's Jail on 27 June with student and professional films tackling youth and politics.
Then gear up for summer as The Sounds of Freedom Music Festival heats up the city on 13 September.
Lively production for kids tackles serious themes
Child's play: The award-winning The Hyena's Tuckshop is on at the Market Theatre precinct this month.
Joburg parents, grab your little ones and head to The Market Theatre this month for a bold and brilliant children's theatre experience that promises laughs, music and lessons that last a lifetime.
The Hyena's Tuckshop, the award-winning play by Mongezi Ntukwana, starts the Kippies Fringe programme curated by The Art Cave from 26 to 29 June, with only five performances in the intimate 50-seater next to the Market.
It's a riot of rhythm, colour and clever rebellion as a sly hyena sells dodgy snacks at sky-high prices — until one sharp rabbit dares to stand up to him.
Inspired by issues around food safety in schools, this playful production tackles serious themes with heart, humour and unforgettable pantsula-infused dance.
Winner of Best Script and Best Director at this year's Young Directors Festival, The Hyena's Tuckshop is a lively, powerful lesson in courage and justice.
Tickets via Webtickets.
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John Kani in Nothing But The Truth. (Photo supplied) Johannesburg is a city where the pavements speak, if you listen close enough — stories beneath tar, between bricks and rising in spaces that have defied silence. Among these sacred spaces is a building that once bustled with the rhythms of trade: fruit piled high, hands exchanging change, spices scenting the air. But beneath that everyday chaos, something deeper was always stirring because the building that housed Johannesburg's Indian Fruit Market would become one of South Africa's most radical, revolutionary cultural sites — The Market Theatre. Today, 49 years after that transformation, the Market Theatre still stands. Not just as a venue but as a living archive of resistance, artistry and the unwavering human urge to speak truth to power. It is no accident that The Market Theatre was born in 1976, a year that ripped off the apartheid regime's mask of control. On 16 June 1976, thousands of students across the country rose in peaceful protest against the forced use of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in black schools. What followed was state violence that left hundreds, possibly even thousands, dead. That year became etched in our bones. Just three days later, on 19 June 1976, Mannie Manim and the late, legendary Barney Simon founded The Market Theatre inside the very structure built in 1913 for the Indian Fruit Market. It was prophetic timing. As the streets burned with rage and sorrow, this theatre opened as a space of artistic defiance, where the suppressed stories of black South Africans could breathe. The theatre's existence challenged apartheid laws — multi-racial casts performed for integrated audiences in defiance of segregation. It was a rebellion with stage lights and scripts. It was activism in performance. 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It is still 'the newspaper of our lives', chronicling the uncomfortable, the beautiful and the necessary. And so we celebrate. Not just a birthday but a legacy. A movement. A sacred space that has held our laughter, our grief, our questions, our dreams. Here's to the next act. Here's to the storytellers still to come. Here's to The Market Theatre — always rising, telling it like it is.
