PASS presents Netsayi & Black Pressure with Siya Makuzeni

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Friday, October 5, 2012 at 8pm
Slave Church, 40 Long Street, Cape Town
Entry R50 presold, R80 at the door
For further info: 021 422 4168

This summer the Pan African Space Station continues its cross-cultural and cyber-spatial exploration with a series of genre-busting live music sessions in Cape Town. The first installment features Zimbabwean singer and songwriter Netsayi and her band Black Pressure exploring new musical territory in collaboration with South African jazz trombonist and songstress Siya Makuzeni.

Working between Harare and London, Netsayi dons multiple femme guises, combining street funk with sweet soul-jazz balladry, Chimurenga-fired radicalism with smokey seduction, and rootsy Mbira risk-taking with pop romance to challenge the boundaries between traditional and modern. As much a torch singer as she is a troubadour, she sings in Shona and English, drawing on personal experiences to make globe-trotting tunes unified by an underlying message of positive social change.

Having forged her craft singing acapella in the clubs of London, Netsayi has gone on to perform on all London’s most famous stages and toured internationally, playing everywhere from Amsterdam to Zanzibar, via Dakar, Shanghai and Sydney with artists as diverse as K’Naan, Omar, Nitin Sawhney and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. She has released two critically-acclaimed albums, Chimurenga Soul and Monkey’s Wedding and her songs have featured on Chris Ofili’s iconic ‘Freeness’ project, and ‘The Black Atlantic’ musical chain letter alongside King Britt and Mike Ladd.

Now based in Zimbabwe she works with Black Pressure, a band featuring Ngoni Chikuse on ngoma and drums, Matthew Ngorima on baritone marimba and lead guitar and Ray Mupfumira on soprano and tenor marimbas and bass to create redemption songs for a new global consciousness. With influences as diverse as Nina Simone, Sade and Brenda Fassie, as well as South African bubblegum, Zimbabwean pop, roots reggae and kwasa kwasa from Zaire, their inimitable sound is as funky as it is emotionally intense and sultry.

For the performance in Cape Town, Netsayi and Black Pressure will share the stage with daring young jazz trombonist and vocalist Siya Makuzeni in a session that promises to be challenging, beautiful, intricate, explosive, joyous and dangerous.

A multifaceted musician, Siya regularly collaborates with artists as diverse as Marcus Wyatt, Themba Mkhize, McCoy Mrubata, Feya Faku, Frank Opperman, Tlale Makhene, Khaya Mahlangu, Sibongile Khumalo and many more. A member of Carlo Mombelli’s Prisoners of Strange, she is also the band leader of her own rock band, Ippyfuz. She has toured and performed around the globe, most notably in Italy where she contributed as co-composer and lyric interpreter to the soundtrack of Forse Dio e Malato (Maybe God is ill). Siya has also lent her songwriting skills to a few albums by various artists. Her live collaborations include Goema Captains, Thandiswa Mazwai, Teba, Tumi, SWR Big Band (Germany) to name a few.

This event is a PASS creation realised with support from Pro-Helvetia.

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