Morena Leraba - Open Rehearsal | Urban Zulu

Morena Leraba - Open Rehearsal | Urban Backpackers

An intimate session with the enigmatic band on Urban Backpacker's Rooftop venue. Limited Space.

Morena Leraba is a shepherd and musician from the mountains of Lesotho (a country in southern Africa) who fuses his homegrown traditional Famo-inspired (sub-genre of traditional Sesotho music) vocals with electronic music, dub and everything in between, creating a psychedelic and entrancing sound that is still to be defined. Merging ideas with other musicians and forming the band, Morena Leraba is meshing cultures and sounds from far and wide to create a truly unique sonic experience beyond language boundaries. 

South Africa bands, BLK JKS and Spoek Mathambo played a major role in Morena Leraba's career as he made several appearances on their performances. Collaborations with other international artists also solidified Morena Leraba's position outside of his native lands. 

Morena Leraba is also featured in Damon Albarn's "African Express" EGOLI album (released July 2019) with song "Johannesburg" being the album's lead single. While currently working on a debut album (with 2 EPs being released before the end of 2019), Morena Leraba is already confirmed to play Afropunk Johannesburg (30-31 December) and Philharmonie de Paris "Afro-Futurisme" in Paris, France (June 2020). Morena Leraba is also selected--with 9 other African artists--to showcase at SXSW Festival 2020 in Austin, Texas (US) in March...

Band Members: 

Thamsanqa Ngwenya - Marimba and vocals | Bronwen Clacherty - Percussions and vocals | Molaoa Resholofetse Mosola - Drums | Molefi Makananise - Bass | Lebogang Edgar Dichabe - Guitar | Steven Hogg - Synthesizers | Teboho Mochaoa - Lead vocals

Appearances: 

(1). Banlieues Bleues Jazz Festival - Paris (as Spoek Mathambo's guest artist) | Paris, France - 2017

(2). AFROPUNK Joburg (as Thandiswa Mazwai and BLK JKS guest artist) | Johannesburg, South Africa - 2017

(3). South African Human Rights Festival | Johannesburg, South Africa - 2018

(4). Festival 2018 (Commonwealth Games) | Queensland, Australia - 2018 

(5). Fête de la musique Joburg | Johannesburg, South Africa - 2018

(6). Oppikopie Festival (as BLK JKS guest artist) | northern South Africa - 2018

(7). Endless Daze Festival | Cape Town, South Africa - 2018

(8). Festival Rituel 2 | Rennes, France - 2018

(9). Les Rencontres Trans Musicales (40èmes) | Rennes, France - 2018

(10). Eurosonic Noorderslag - Festival Groningen 2019 | Groningen, Netherlands (as ONIPA guest artist) - 2019

(11). Design Indaba 2019: Nightscape - The Creative Village | Cape Town, South Africa - 2019

(12). Cape Town Electronic Music Festival (CTEMF) | Cape Town, South Africa - 2019

(13). Waltham Forest Borough of London 2019: The Africa Express | London, United Kingdom - 2019 

(14). MTN Bushfire Festival | Mbabane, e'Swatini (formerly Swaziland) - 2019

(13). Sentebale AUDI Concert 2019 (Hampton Court Palace) | London, United Kingdom - 2019

(14). Oslo World Festival 2019 | Oslo, Norway - 2019

Social Media:

FB: @morenaleraba | Twitter: @morenaleraba | Instagram: @morenaleraba | YouTube: @morenaleraba