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IOL News
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- IOL News
Pan Africanist artist Simphiwe Dana will enthrall crowds with her 'magic' at the Baxter
Simphiwe Dana at the Playhouse Image: Hugh Mdlalose IF THE Durban leg of her delightful concert over a week ago is anything to go by, loyal fans of music sensation Simphiwe Dana are in for a magical time at the Baxter this weekend. On Friday and Saturday, Dana is in Cape Town to round up her three-city 20th anniversary as a professional musician, her debut album, Zandisile took South Africa by storm in 2004 and gave us some of the most loved and enduring songs ever to come from this land recently. From the time the lights hit the expansive stage of the Opera, the 1224-seater at the Playhouse, Dana made a grand entrance with her anthemic Nkwenkwezi. As fans whistled, ululated, and went absolutely crazy, it was evident the Pan Africanist diva and her forces were in for epic vocal and spiritual libations of joyous music and dazzling lights. Despite a disappointingly average turnout, Dana and her 24-member band led by Tshepo Tsotetsi stuck to the mandate and turned the night into an unforgettable and intimate celebration I would not have wanted to miss for the world. Special guests, Clermont township choir, Red Light Choir added a perfect choral flavour to the evening. 'I am here to thank the people for supporting me all these years,' she said a few hours before the show. The chatty award-winning composer and band leader was determined to let her audience feel her appreciation, a theme she kept going till her final song for the night. 'Sanibonani bantu baKwaZulu!' From her greetings as her band was warming up, and throughout the show, her rapport with her audience was unbreakable. The thunderous response to her question whether anyone of Mpondo and Thembu ancestry was in the house or not was yet another show of her deep love for her cultural roots and their socio-philosophical anchorage. Gifted not just with a golden and versatile voice, Dana draws from a rich traditional South African blues, jazz and Southern African choral source whose Pan Africanist timbre and textures continue to attain depth and harmony of voice. Watching her and hearing her sing can take one to the old rural Transkei hinterlands where girls not only listened to the music of the elders, but also were adept at playing instruments such as umrhubhe-mouth bow. Although unlike her predecessors among them Nofinishi Dywili, Mantombi Matotiyana and Madosini, she does not play umrhubhe, at times her blues vocal style gestures to the echoes of their revered multivocal overtone singing style known as umngqokolo. Inasmuch as she has had a wide range of musical influences including jazz, reggae, hip-hop, gospel, Afro soul and maskandi over the years, as a politically and culturally conscious artist, Dana refuses to imprison her spirited repertoire to narrow prisms of fixed time, space and breadth. Neither does she feel comfortable being compared to her role models among them, iconic Sophiatown divas such as Miriam Makeba, Dorothy Masuku, Sophie Mgcina and Thandi Klaasen, insisting what they accomplished under harsh conditions is simply unrepeatable. Since she came into the scene in 2004 with her album, Zandisile, Dana has been searching for healing, affirming her life and the lives of people who are special to her. In Tribute to maMjoli, she remembers her beloved and stunningly beautiful late mother, Noziphumo maMjoli Dana who died of a Covid-19-related illness in 2021.
The Citizen
16-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Citizen
24 hours in pictures, 16 June 2025
24 hours in pictures, 16 June 2025 Through the lens: The Citizen's Picture Editors select the best news photographs from South Africa and around the world. The setting sun glows behind Salgo Castle as seen from Salgotarjan, northern Hungary, 15 June 2025. Picture: EPA-EFE/Peter Komka A Black-headed heron eats a field mouse in Gqeberha in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, on June 11, 2025. Picture: Matrix Images / Nic Bothma Well known South African Afro-soul diva Simphiwe Dana performs at a packed Durban Playhouse opera theare in Durban over the weekend. The concert ' Simphiwe Dana: Reflections' was to celebrate 20 years of song. Dana celebrated 20 years in music with fans packed at the concert hekd at the Durban Playhouse for her rich vocals, poetic lyrics, and powerful took fans on an emotional journey through her career. The energy was electric as the crowd sang and danced along, honouring a true legend of not only a South African but a diva whose made her mark worldwide. Picture: Rajesh Jantilal Alti Fouche, from Silla Speciality Cakes, and DA Councillor Simon Lapping pose for a photograph with a cake as they celebrate the approaching third birthday of the Rondebult Road sinkhole in Boksburg. The ongoing delay in repairing the sinkhole continues to undermine the city's economy, frustrate road users, and negatively impact local businesses. Picture: Michel Bega/The Citizen Rise Mzanzi activists attends a commemoration event at the Hector Pieterson Memorial on June 16, 2025 in Soweto, South Africa. The ceremony will reflect on the importance of preserving the meaning of 16 June 1976. The ceremony honours the youth who led the Soweto Uprising and underscores the need to protect their legacy through continued advocacy for quality education, equality, and social justice. (Photo by Laird Forbes/Gallo Images) A girl holds a Palestinian flag during a Pro-Palestinian rally in Istanbul, Turkey, 15 June 2025. More than 55,200 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, since Israel launched a military campaign in the strip in response to a cross-border attack led by the Palestinian militant group Hamas on 07 October 2023, in which about 1,200 Israelis were killed and more than 250 taken hostage. Picture: EPA-EFE/ERDEM SAHIN Children at the MK Youth League Launch at Christianenburg Stadium on June 16, 2025 in Durban, South Africa. The MK Party Youth League (MKPYL) was established to provide a platform for young South Africans to participate actively in the political process and aims to continue the fight for justice, equality, and socio-economic development in the post-apartheid era. (Photo by Gallo Images/Darren Stewart) Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men inspect the damage at the site of an Iranian missile strike in Bnei Brak, east of Tel Aviv, on June 16, 2025. Iran unleashed a barrage of missile strikes on Israeli cities early on June 16, after Israel struck military targets deep inside Iran, with both sides threatening further devastation. (Photo by JOHN WESSELS / AFP) French aerobatic flying team Patrouille de France (PAF) aircraft perform a flyover during the 55th edition of the International Paris Air Show at the Paris-Le Bourget Airport, in Le Bourget, near Paris, France, 16 June 2025. The Paris Air Show, one of the largest trade fairs of the aerospace-industry and air shows in the world, runs from 16 to 22 June. Picture: EPA-EFE/CHRISTOPHE PETIT TESSON Migrants walk in the water to board a smuggler's boat in an attempt to cross the English Channel off the beach of Gravelines, northern France on June 16, 2025. The sun was just rising on Monday June 16, 2025, but dozens of migrants were striding along the beach in Gravelines (Nord), watched by almost as many police officers. Some of them managed to board a dinghy bound for England, leaving disappointed, haggard people behind. (Photo by Sameer Al-DOUMY / AFP) Firefighters battle intense flames fanned by strong northerly winds as a fire that began above Boyes Drive in Muizenberg spread rapidly toward St James on June 15, 2025 in Cape Town, South Africa. The fire threatened to cross the scenic drive, prompting a large-scale response. SANParks Table Mountain National Park SEAM Rangers detained at least six individuals seen near the fire's origin, as investigations continue into the cause. (Photo by Gallo Images/Brenton Geach) The Life Guards, members of the Household Cavalry march between the spectators at the Order of the Garter service at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle, southern England, on June 16, 2025. The Order of the Garter is the oldest and most senior Order of Chivalry in Britain, established by King Edward III nearly 700 years ago (Photo by HENRY NICHOLLS / POOL / AFP) MORE: 24 hours in pictures, 12 June 2025
Mail & Guardian
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Mail & Guardian
Simphiwe Dana reflects on two decades of music
Unknown place: Simphiwe Dana says that the album she is working on could be the final one she writes but that she will carry on performing and collaborating. I have experienced Simphiwe Dana's compelling presence on stage many times. Not to say that was her entire personality — no, Dana is much more. But there are only a few people we meet in life, from close or from a distance, and can instantly tell — they do not walk alone. Their spirit is that of our forefathers. It carries weight and respect. It announces itself quietly, with humility, yet with a magnitude impossible to ignore. Now imagine having those thoughts first thing on a Monday morning. My nerves were jittering so intensely, I forgot to have breakfast. It's not every day that one gets to speak to a voice that has held us through joy, through protest, through heartbreak and healing. At 10am sharp, as agreed with her PR person, I dialled her number. No answer. I stared at the phone. What now? Before I could decide my next move, the phone rang. Dana. 'I am so sorry I missed your call; I was just making breakfast,' she said, her voice as textured and calm as I had remembered it from countless interviews and performances. 'Do you want a few minutes to eat? I also haven't had breakfast yet,' I offered. 'Perfect,' she responded. 'Go make food and a cup of tea or coffee and I will call you back in a few,' she said. I had to pause. Am I about to have a telephonic breakfast with Simphiwe Dana? Surely, I have lived a full life. She called me back in 10 minutes. Coffee on her end. Rooibos on mine. What followed was an encounter with a soul who has been documenting the collective inner life of a nation for over two decades. Dana's debut album Zandisile, released in 2004, earned her instant acclaim and multiple South African Music Awards (Samas). I was so young but I still remember how Ndiredi played on every radio station and on every music show on TV like an anthem. It was a moment — a feeling. Maybe I didn't understand it fully then but I felt it. We all did. Dana has released a string of powerful and genre-defying albums. From One Love Movement on Bantu Biko Street (2006), a bold and unapologetic celebration of black consciousness, to Kulture Noir (2010), which won her Best Female Artist and Best Contemporary Jazz Album at the Samas, Dana has always fused the traditional with the contemporary, the spiritual with the political. Her 2014 album Firebrand further cemented her place as a torchbearer of artistic activism, and in 2021, she offered Bamako, an emotionally rich and musically layered project that she partly recorded in Mali. Over 20 years since then. A number so large, even Dana herself marvels at it. 'I am really not good at celebrating myself,' she tells me. 'I always feel quite awkward about it. But this one feels different. I am giving back to a community that has given me so much for two decades. 'The response from them is thankfulness — and actually, I am the one who is thankful.' Dana will be celebrating her career at the Baxter Theatre Concert Hall, in Cape Town, on Friday 27 and Saturday 28 June. This reciprocity between her and her listeners is sacred, almost spiritual. There is something in her tone that suggests gratitude but not in the usual platitudinal way. It's embodied. 'Something that is rare in life is that someone can live off doing something that they love. I am one such person. That has been given to me by people who listen to my work.' Reflecting on Zandisile, she tells me: 'When I listen to Zandisile today I think to myself, 'I was so young and wide-eyed.' I feel like I have always been old — and I am not talking about age. 'In many ways, I feel like I have not changed much from that young girl. I am not as naive anymore but the old soul thing has made me remain the same.' That old soul presence — it is something you feel when Dana walks into a room or when her voice travels through speakers and enters you. She is not tethered to the conventional measurement of age. She is measured in spirit. 'Now I am understanding why the likes of Bra Hugh Masekela were so youthful,' she says. 'Because I think he carried the same spirit.' Dana is working on a new album — one she feels might be her final one. 'This could possibly be my last album that I write,' she says. 'It is treating me differently. Not musically, but it is pushing me into an unknown place.' Not a statement of resignation, but of transformation: 'There is nothing to be sad about. I will still be performing and collaborating. There is so much I still could do. 'The thing about writing is that you usually have to take time away — and with me, it happens to be at least three years. It is very taxing on the mind and spirit. I feel like it takes years off my life … Writing is not for the weak.' She says this not with despair, but with an honesty that has long been her signature. Writing, for Dana, is not just creative — it is ritual. It demands from her. Dana's work has always carried a sharp socio-political consciousness. Her lyrics live in the hearts of the people. They ask, they challenge, they comfort, they uplift. 'As artists, we are watchers and observers. I have gone through many phases and I felt every phase that we have gone through as a country. As they say, the personal is the political.' The music is her lens. 'I try to understand why people do the things that they do in power. I try to understand if there is something that they are seeing that I am not seeing and I do that through the music. 'I am listening to the people and probing things that they care about. I literally have my ear on the ground.' She pauses. 'I write about things that bother me. The state of the country right now is something that is always on my mind. Right now, I am trying to understand who we have become and who we will be in the future.' And always, in true Dana fashion, she adds: 'Even when things are dire, there is hope.' Dana's music is often described as spiritual. It is not just because of the sonic choices or the lyrical content. It is because she is a messenger. 'Music is from our ancestors. I am a conduit. And I must honour my gift. I have to be responsible for my gift and take care of that gift by taking care of myself.' Twenty years on, I ask her which songs from her rich discography still move her as much as they've moved us. 'Songs like Nzinga — singing that song live definitely moves me. It's an adaptation of a Jonas Gwangwa song called Flowers of the Nation. I used to hear him perform it live. I would rush out and listen with my hands in the air. For me, that song is church. It is Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika.' She also mentions Lakutshon' ilanga, Mayime and Inkwenkwezi. And then I ask what she would tell her younger self — Simphiwe at 24, wide-eyed, dropping Zandisile into the world. 'I would tell her to go to therapy and deal with your childhood trauma. Don't use it as some kind of fact of your story season. Deal with your trauma as soon as possible.' My rooibos has gone cold. I imagine her coffee has, too. But her voice still lingers — clear, intentional, present. Simphiwe Dana is not just a singer. She is a witness. A question. A balm. A voice from the sacred hills. And if this next album is her last, we must receive it not with sorrow but reverence. She is not done. Not by a long stretch.
eNCA
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- eNCA
Simphiwe Dana celebrates two decades of excellence
JOHANNESBURG - The African Queen of Soul, the voice of the ages Simphiwe Dana's debut album Zandisile was released twenty years ago. Dana celebrates two decades of artistry with a showcase of her work and talents at The Baxter Concert Hall. Two shows to be held on 27 and 28 June 2025 will explore the multidimensional aspects of her work and growth.
