It is with huge excitement that Bassline Summer announces the multi-talented, award-winning South African, London based, singer, songwriter, novelist and actor Nakhane Live at The Lyric Theatre, Gold Reef City, on Friday 24th November 2023. Tickets are available through Computicket from R250 upwards.
https://tickets.computicket.com/event/nakhane_live_experience_at_the_lyric_presented_by_bassline_summer/7233842/7233851/14848
This show is sponsored by the SAMPRA Development Fund (SDF) and Bassline. The SDF is a Corporate Social Investment arm of The South African Music Performance Rights Association (SAMPRA) that was established to meaningfully contribute to the development and sustainability of its members, music promoters, and the entire South African Music industry.
Nakhane’s performances mainly happen abroad, so they are excited to finally be playing at home. ” Since I dropped Bastard Jargon in March I’ve been dying to perform some of its songs for my audience at home. So much of the sound of the album was informed by music I grew up listening to in South Africa. For example: Bongo Maffin on ‘My Ma Was Good’, and TKZee and Zim Ngqawana on ‘Hear Me Moan.’ Of Course I will be playing the old favourites as well. The show is sweaty, electronic and percussive; mostly uptempo, but with a midsection that slows everything down and is not afraid of silence.”
“This one night only, special occasion to see Nakhane live onstage, in the beautiful setting of The Lyric Theatre, with its state of the art sound, stage, lighting and Imperial Theatre feel, will be likened to witnessing Nakhane in a Theatre such as the Apollo Theatre in London, except it’ll be on home ground infront of all of Nakhane’s fans who have last seen them perform live almost a year and a half ago at the Bassline Fest in May 2021. ” Says Paige Holmes of Bassline Summer.
Brad Holmes of Bassline Live adds “ Nakhane is one of the most talented artists to ever grace a Bassline stage, we have had the privilege of working with Nakhane for the last eight years and we are looking forward to hearing and most of all seeing their vital performance of their new music live in our Lyric Theatre produced show.”
Back in the days before Covid-19, Nakhane was coming to the end of a two-and-a-half year tour playing songs from their devastating 2018 album ‘You Will Not Die’. Since its release, Nakhane has duetted with Anohni, been cited as an inspiration by Madonna; sung the role of Siddhartha in a forthcoming musical with Elton John and Christopher Plummer; acted in the feature film ‘Two Eyes’, and a screen adaptation by the playwright debbie tucker green of her play ‘Ear For Eye’; and performed alongside Glenn Close and Patti LuPone in John Cameron Mitchell’s podcast musical Anthem: ‘Homunculous’. The artist has also written a plethora of newspaper and magazine articles, plus an erotic short story – and has a second novel and a short film under construction. Nakhane has also come out as non-binary, using they/them pronouns.
Nakhane’s latest album Bastard Jargon was released in March 2023. They told The Guardian that “Bastard Jargon is the light at the end of the tunnel in many ways. It’s about sex, morality, politics and identity, but it’s also a project of joy, embarking on a new sonic and stylistic journey. The process of creating the album was different too. “Instead of writing to chords, I would layer drums first. It was this sense of a new beginning.” Lead single Tell Me Your Politik, featuring Nile Rodgers and Moonchild Sanelly, is uptempo, hyper-percussive and features South African gqom and kwaito. Nakhane had known since 2013 that they wanted to make a rhythmic dance album, but it wasn’t until touring wrapped for You Will Not Die that the timing felt right. “That album was based on so much trauma. I just couldn’t make that kind of music any more. I was exhausted from singing sad songs. The only way I was going to be creative again was if I swung to the other side.”
The result is ‘Bastard Jargon’, a pounding, physical, hot-blooded third album which sounds like grit sprayed over shiny pop. Written over 18 months in Lisbon, Ghent, Oxfordshire, London and Hastings, “It’s an existential sex album,” says the artist. “Almost every song on it has some kind of wink towards sex. It’s not necessarily a seductive, come to me, bedroom eyes kind of sex – it’s much more inquisitive, psychological sex. When I wrote ‘You Will Not Die’ it was at the end of my relationship with Christianity, and then when I wrote Bastard Jargon I’d moved to London and I threw myself into just wanting to feel good.”
To realise this lustful vision, Nakhane recruited Nile Rodgers as executive producer, having first met the Chic legend at the BBC doing ‘Later With Jools Holland’. Rodgers plays on the second track (and co-produced 5 others), ‘Tell Me Your Politik’, along with a ferocious rap from Moonchild Sanelly.
Other producers on ‘Bastard Jargon’ include John Congleton (St Vincent, Angel Olsen, Sharon Van Etten), Leo Abrahams (Wild Beasts, Brian Eno, Regina Spektor), Matthew Herbert, South African rock band BLK JKS, Max Hershenow (previously of MsMr) and Emre Turkmen (previously of Years and Years). Raphael Saadiq played bass on ‘Hold Me Down’ . All 10 songs were written or co-written, and co-produced by Nakhane, who also has an engineering credit on most of the tracks.
The album’s title comes from Nakhane’s student days at Wits University, Johannesburg, studying literature and African languages. “Before a language is standardized, before it becomes a pidgin or even a creole, it’s called a bastard jargon because it’s neither here nor there, it belongs to no-one,” Nakhane says. “I remember the first time I heard that thinking it would be a good title for something. And then making this album I felt it represented that newness and sense of discovery. ”
This one night only experience with Nakhane is certainly not to be missed!
Nakhane Social Media
Facebook: @nakhaneofficial
Twitter: @nakhaneofficial
Instagram: nakhaneofficial
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXBd4umQ9Cc6zUVCclHXCbw
Website: http://nakhaneofficial.com