Johannesburg - The Basha Uhuru Freedom Festival is back at Constitution Hill for its 10th anniversary, and has featured some of the country’s hottest artists.
The freedom festival kept it spicy with its fast-food brand partner Nando’s with a host of creative workshops and stage performances. Some of the acts who danced and thrilled crowds at the heritage site were amapiano queen DBN Gogo, rapper Blxckie, Msaki, kwaito legend Mandla Spikiri, Big Zulu & DJ Lelowhatsgood.
“It’s such an incredible vibe that happens and I’m really excited to be performing at the festival for the second time,” said artist Melo B Jones, who performed on stage.
“Those who know my live performances know that I perform with my lib station I dubbed ‘Dimakatso’. So what it does is that I record live and work between that, acoustics and looping and incorporate it all into my live sets.”
The rest of the line-up included amapiano phenomenon Aymos, iPhupho L'ka Biko, up-and-coming DJ MamThug, Kyotic, DJ Mr X, Bonj, Fif_Laaa, Bonj, DJ Zero, Thabie, DJ Walker; Mo_Niks,and AN.D.
“It’s a big opportunity to be part of this, especially when you’re involved with a big brand like Nando’s. If I had my own CV, this would be pretty nice to add for my next job interview,” said Aymos.
The Tembisa-born amapiano artist and producer has previously worked with Nando’s on its intercontinental series, "Mix It Up". The project saw Aymos and singer-songwriter Basetsana collaborate with four UK artists and four amapiano producers on Nando’s Extended Play record, "Extra Extra Hot".
A signature event of the Constitution Hill Museum and National Heritage site, the Basha Uhuru Freedom Festival was founded in 2012 to immortalise the memory of the youth who fought for their right to choose in the Soweto 1976 Uprising, affording the youth of today the freedom to create.
From October 25, the festival hosted the Basha Uhuru Freedom Festival Creative Week, an all-encompassing creative showcase created for industry heads and aspiring creatives to come together, be inspired and showcase their talents. Each day had a particular creative focus through master classes, panel discussions, workshops and dialogues.
Topics that were covered varied from business, design and technology, queer representation in media and performance, and stories of professional failure. A visual representation of the work completed through these programmes was the performance by the Nandoca Uhurus. The group were part of Nando’s internal music talent development programme and received mentorship from other acts Msaki and Bonga Kwana.