Last week, American pop culture split itself down the middle over a 13-minute half-time performance.
Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican global-pop juggernaut, lit up the Super Bowl stage with salsa, Spanglish swagger and a full-throttle celebration of Latinidad. His costars in this Latin culture-swinging cabaret, Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin, bumped up the spectacle even more. Some saw it as revolutionary.
Others fumed on cable news, clutching at their English-only pearls, while a few watched the alternate half-time show starring the 55-year-old rapper Kid Rock, whose last Billboard Hot 100 hit was in 2015.
But here in South Africa, we’d probably just ask what rum he was drinking and whether that beat could get played at the after-party, sampled in an amapiano track.
Because here, we don’t fear the mixing pot — we stir it. Often with rhythm. Every now and then with rage. And more and more, with purpose.
So the Sankofa Heritage Festival fits perfectly into our cultural ecosystem. It’s not just another music event but a cultural gathering, a reclamation and a reimagining, taking place in late February.
Curated and headlined by three of the continent’s most luminous voices — Thandiswa Mazwai, Somi and Msaki — Sankofa is a musical statement with ancestral depth. Not nostalgia and not novelty, but a reckoning of our shared histories in harmony.
“Sankofa is about returning to something,” says Mazwai, who turns 50 this year. “Returning to joy, healing, community… and imagining what the future might look like if we focus on those things.”
Msaki: The Sonic Weaver
Few voices cut through the national noise like Msaki’s. Soft yet serrated, her sound holds protest in one hand and vulnerability in the other. From her 2021 double album Platinumb Heart to her haunting collaborations, Msaki has always mined the silences left by South Africa’s loudest ghosts.
Sankofa, for her, isn’t a stage — it’s a circle. A spiritual rehearsal for the kind of country we could become.
Somi: Voice Between Worlds
Somi Kakoma moves between continents like melody between breaths. Born in Illinois to Rwandan and Ugandan parents, she fuses African jazz, soul and poetry into a genre-defiant soundscape. From Grammy-nominated albums to Off-Broadway tributes, her music is a performance of biographical cartography, charting memory, exile and the grace of return.
Thandiswa Mazwai: Sound of Past and Future
She first ignited South African airwaves as the magnetic lead singer of Bongo Maffin, the pioneering kwaito group that gave post-apartheid youth their voice and groove. But her solo work transformed her into something else — a cultural matriarch blending tradition, jazz, politics and prophecy in every breath.
The Sisterhood Soundscape
Mazwai, Somi and Msaki are three very different women, united by overlapping concerns. But, as they all tell me, Sankofa wasn’t engineered — it was felt into being, built from friendship, grief and a shared refusal to be packaged for the Grammys.
“The music chooses you,” Somi says. “It feels good. And the feeling is what leads you to the way.”
She speaks like a philosopher. A gorgeous griot in designer clothes. Her connection to South Africa, though not ancestral, is profound — a sense of artistic homecoming in a country that listens to jazz with reverence.
Mazwai and Somi first met in mourning. They held each other silently in the days leading up to Hugh Masekela’s funeral. Msaki entered the picture later — separately, but spiritually and artistically in sync — and the trio became something more than collaborators: they became a community.
Why Now?
Mazwai is unapologetic about timing. “When you turn 50,” she says, “you start to think about what you can do with the rest of your life.”
Sankofa is part of that answer. It’s the seed of a legacy rather than a vanity project. She speaks about building a festival — but also a library, an archive, a platform for voices that aren’t just marketable but meaningful. She speaks about heritage as something that breathes: choral harmonies, jazz riffs, amapiano basslines — all part of the same choir.
“Whether it’s traditional music or amapiano,” she says, “this is our heritage. It deserves space, fullness and honour.”
Sankofa: A Philosophy with a Beat
Sankofa means “to go back and fetch it” — a Ghanaian idea that resonates loudly in these women’s work. But it’s not just about the past. It’s about what you take with you.
“What do we look back to that will help us move forward?” Somi asks. It’s a deceptively simple question that becomes the bones of the festival.
Each artist will perform a full set. Expect Somi’s jazz elegance, Mazwai’s revolutionary poise and Msaki’s unpredictable power. There’s also a competition for young, emerging voices — not just a showcase but a passing of the flame.
There’s even whispered talk of a joint performance. Nothing confirmed.
Who Are We Singing For?
When asked about African music’s so-called global moment, Mazwai demurs.
“This music is ours. I know who I write it for.”
Somi, characteristically reflective, adds nuance. The world may be streaming African sounds — Afrobeats, amapiano, whatever the trend du jour — but they’re still hearing us as a monolith.
“We’re asking the industry to hear nuance,” she says. “To understand rhythms, influences, languages. Not just categories.”
Sankofa is a refusal to be categorised. It is the sound of South African plurality — multilingual, multifaceted, magnificently human.
While America debates whether a half-time show was “too ethnic”, South Africa is building something quieter and more profound: a table where no one has to ask permission to belong.
Sankofa Heritage Festival takes place on 28 February at the Big Top Arena, Carnival City, Brakpan. Tickets from R400 are available at Computicket.
Thandi Ntuli, Madala Kunene, Jahseed, Sivuyile Traditional Dance Group and DJ Kenzhero will also perform.
Sunday Times
