Siyabonga Mthembu & Nobuhle Ashanti Live

Event Date:Thursday 24th March 2022

Event Time:9pm - 11PM

Ticket Price: R150

Headline & Name of artist: Siyabonga Mthembu & Nobuhle Ashanti Live

Names & Instrument of each artist:

1. Siyabonga Mthembu (Vocals)

2. Nobuhle Ashanti (Piano/keys)

Siyabonga Mhleli Mthembu

When I left secondary school I remember writing on a note pad what the outcome of what I

wanted to do was, it read “I want an international art career of national worth”. The teething

moments of this realization have been a collaboration and creation of an art experience in the

form of the Brother Moves On (my band) and my participation as an arts practitioner and lead

vocalist for global super band Shabaka and the Ancestors.

I chant and sing lead vocals for the Brother Moves On

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brother_Moves_On .

I returned home from Rhodes University having played in a band named Orangutang B*tch. I had

been studying Dramatic arts and wanted to bring that to my musical performance experience in

a space that played with the fourth wall of performance(the audience). My late brother

convinced me and my cousin that we could form a band with a revolving door policy thus

ensuring space for growth and collaboration outside of the band. This was true for a while until

we found the right grouping of humans to work, travel and collaborate with. The band now

comprises of seven individuals from different parts of Johannesburg whose music pays homage

to South African Jazz/Rock /Funk, in its love for the esoteric and eccentric in what it is to be

rhythmically South African. The Brother Moves On has released three EP’s and one full debut

album independently and have recently been signed to UK boutique labels Matsuli Records and

Native Rebels Recordings for two new releases in 2022.

I recently co-produced a compilation with the untouchable Thandi Ntuli titled “Indaba Is” which

was a recording of eight songs from 48 musicians from the Johannesburg avant garde and jazz

music scene during the height of the pandemic lockdown. The album gained critical acclaim from

The New York Times, Jazztimes and got the two of us as producers on the cover of the

prestigious music magazine The Wire Magazine Issue 444.

The social impact of my work represents something I hold pride in. We are self starters, self

managed and independent of an industry finding difficulty to locate its audience. We’ve been a

band signed to a major gallery in the form of the Goodman Gallery and have opened the

Johannesburg Art Week and travelled the globe representing South Africa at the South African

Season in France and the South African Season in the UK respectively.