Musicians:
Thandiswa Mazwai (vocals)
Lungile Maduna (Drums)
Sanele Phakathi (Keys)
Sunnyboy Mthimunye (Guitar)
Tendai Shoko (Bass Guitar)

Thandiswa Mazwai 
Thandiswa has been one of the most influential post-Apartheid singers in South Africa. She began her career in 1996 with music groups Jack Knife and Bongo Maffin, one of the pioneers of the dance music genre, Kwaito. After 6 award-winning albums with Bongo Maffin she ventured into a solo career. 

Her first solo project Zabalaza (2004), reached double platinum status and won numerous awards, including a Kora award for Best African Female and four South African Music Awards. Her critically acclaimed sophomoric release, Ibokwe (2009), and third album, a jazz reinterpretation of South African classics, Belede (2016), reached gold status within a few weeks of release. Her compositions include traditional Xhosa music, mbaqanga, funk, jazz, and reggae. Sankofa (2024), her fourth release, was recorded in Johannesburg, Dakar, and New York, and combines archival Xhosa field recordings, jazz and west African music. It includes songs produced by Meshell Ndegeocello, Chris Bruce, Nduduzo Makhathini, and Thandiswa.

Sankofa is a Ghanian Twi word that means 'to go back and fetch what has been left behind'. The making of the album embodied that idea, Thandiswa says, “In 2010, I went to visit the International Library of African Music at Rhodes University where I got access to an archive of field and research of Xhosa Music which contained umrhubhe, uhadi, all these types of musical expressions that exist within the tradition; I had these recordings for a very long time. During the COVID lockdown, I went back to these recordings and realised I could use
them as a bedrock for creating new songs, and these field recordings became the building blocks of the album. After I did all the pre-production on songs with my friend Tendai Shoko, we would put down to bass, notes, and guitar chords to create demos, which we would then take to my producers Nduduzo Makhathini and Meshell Ndegeocello. What I noticed was they were really responding to the archives, and this became the looming spirit that carried
us through the album: all of us experimenting, discovering, investigating, questioning, collecting our lineages, rooting ourselves and responding to the archival experience and infusing it with something from the now. In West Africa, they responded to the archive by marrying expressions from umrhubhe with the Kora bringing their colour into it, making this a truly Pan-African album. The album was recorded in Johannesburg, South Africa, Dakar, Senegal, and New York in the United States, so it speaks not only to the Pan African spirit but also to the diaspora.'

Known for her electrifying performances, Thandiswa has performed all over the world at venues including the Tiny Desk Concert, Apollo Theatre, The Lincoln Centre, The Cannes Film Festival, Africa Express, BBC World Music Awards, TED, Afropunk, Carnegie Hall Citywide Festival, among others. She has collaborated with artists such as Hugh Masekela, Meshell Ndegeocello (including on her
2024 Grammy Winning album), Fatoumata Diawara, Somi, and DJ Black Coffee.