The Cape Town Club - Odwa Bongo Live

The Cape Town Club and Mara Lounge presents Odwa Bongo Live

SATURDAY 20 DECEMBER 2025 | 19H00

Limited Tickets from R250 | Club Members R200

ABOUT THE SHOW:

Vela Sikubone: The Emergence of Our Ancestral Sound

Vela Sikubone is a declaration of visibility, an artistic awakening that invites both the artist and the instrument to step forward, shine, and take up space without apology. Led by vocalist and contemporary uHadi practitioner Odwa Bongo, this intimate production centres the uHadi as the sole indigenous instrument, accompanied by the gentle harmonic support of guitar. Together, they create a soundscape that is raw, honest, and spiritually charged.

At its heart, the show is about revealing one’s gift, standing in one’s truth, and refusing to shrink in a world that often overlooks indigenous expression. Just as Odwa steps boldly into his artistic power, the uHadi also emerges from the shadows, no longer hidden, no longer underestimated, but rising confidently into the light. Its single vibrating string becomes a metaphor for courage: a reminder that even one voice, when claimed fully, can transform the room.

Historically carried by Xhosa women as a vessel for personal expression, healing, and inner narrative, the uHadi in this show becomes a companion in visibility, an ancestral witness that encourages the performer to shine while shining itself. Through voice, story, and improvisation, the performance honours the uHadi’s journey from private spaces into contemporary stages, asserting its relevance and demanding the protection of indigenous sound.

Vela Sikubone invites audiences into a moment of emergence where tradition and self-belief meet, where the past lifts the present, and where both artist and instrument proclaim:

We are here. We are visible. We are enough.

VIP TABLES AVAILABLE

18 Queen Victoria Street, Company Gardens, Cape Town, 8000