HER presents Lia Butler

Divas in Concert x Untitled Basement presents

Lia Butler

The rising voice of Neo-Zulu

Friday 14 August | Doors: 18h00 | Performance: 20h00 | Untitled Basement, 7 Reserve St, Braamfontein | Quicket: R300 | Door: R350

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Born Nombulelo Mzobe in Durban, Lia Butler grew up in a singing family where music was never a question, only a given — and where an hour set aside for everyone to play whatever they wanted exposed her early to everything from South African legends to international sounds. What stayed with her, through it all, was the soulful, storytelling kind of music — the thread that now runs through everything she makes.

That upbringing gave rise to Neo-Zulu, the genre Butler has made her own: a blend of umbhaqanga, amahubo, neo-soul, R&B, and hip hop, rich with Durban's coastal, dreamy character and rooted deep in Zulu identity. She cites Thandiswa Mazwai and Simphiwe Dana as her blueprint — artists who taught her that being deeply South African and deeply cultural doesn't have to be diluted to be embraced by wider audiences. It's a lesson she's built her entire sound around.

Since first finding her voice through covers in 2015, Butler has released bodies of work including Smiling Through Everything and Isiqephu, built a devoted following, and started to feel the strange, validating weight of strangers telling her that her music carried them through heartbreak or loss. Her songs move fluidly between black love, black culture, and black spirituality — themes she treats not as concepts but as lived, everyday beauty.

At Untitled Basement, expect a set that's as intimate as it is genre-defying — a young artist honoring the women who shaped her while carving out a sound that belongs entirely to her.

ABOUT HER: DIVAS IN CONCERT

HER is Divas in Concert x Untitled Basement's Women's Month live music series, bringing together legendary and emerging South African women artists across nine shows running throughout the month of August. This is the second season of the series, following its debut run in March 2026.

At its core, HER exists to give South African women in music a stage built specifically to hold them — pairing established names with rising voices, and treating each show as both a celebration and a document of the women shaping the country's musical history in real time.

Powered by Divas in Concert. Supported by the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture, Gauteng Province, and the Gauteng Tourism Authority. In partnership with The Heart of Creative Excellence. Consulting partner: Moratuwe Consultants. Online media partner: iQhawe Magazine.

Show info:

Expect two sets of approximately 45-60 minutes each with a 15minute interval.

This series offers reserved seating only.

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