Slow Life presents Bokani Dyer at The Brass Room Kalk Bay

Bokani Dyer was raised in a world exposed to various musical traditions. His father, Steve Dyer, is a prominent jazz musician who has built a legacy of humanity through his art, honouring the ideals of Ubuntu. This history and lineage has influenced Bokani’s work, and continues to guide the ways in which he approaches music today. With Bokani Dyer Trio - Traditions, he looks at the music he has inherited, the music that has shaped his ear, and asks what happens when those traditions are carried into a new time and place. For the first time, most of the repertoire are covers, reimagined through the intimate language of the piano trio.

For Bokani, this project looks at what has been passed down, understanding where it comes from and finding new ways of re-imagining the music. “I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel. I’m interested in new, novel ways of approaching the songs, leaning on the established traditions that have come before and seeing how I can present them in an interesting way.”

This is particularly evident in the album’s focus track, “African Piano: Inxembula”. A traditional Xhosa folk song famously recorded by legendary uhadi player Nofinishi Dywili and The Ngqoko Women’s Ensemble, Inxembula, meaning “the ugly one,” was also repurposed as a struggle song during apartheid. Bokani’s rendition brings the song into a new setting through piano, bass, flute and drums, connecting generations of musical memory while allowing the tradition to keep evolving.

Traditions is both a look into the past and a way forward. The album arrived 1 October 2026