ntsoana

#katarasessions is a way for musicians to sing their songs in configurations that are unfamiliar to the people who listen to their music, or present works-in-progress written primarily on an acoustic instrument. It’s presented as a series of videos on YouTube, and the point is explore ways of engaging with the music beyond well-packaged singles aimed for airplay on mainstream radio, and consumption on other electronic media.

This episode on Bongeziwe Mabandla was filmed mid-December during a festival called Riversong held over three days in a town named Humburg, Eastern Cape. We’d spent the Sunday morning scouting for a location, itself a testing mission due to the drizzle which came and went as it saw fit, and settled eventually for the dilapidated outpost whose decaying roof provided respite from the rain. Writer and curator Lindokuhle Nkosi was around, and did an interview afterwards. It’ll appear in some form one day. The song Bongeziwe chose to sing is also the soundtrack to an infomercial that was airing on national television at around the same time, about drunken driving. It’s a bop, short and sweet. Dig it!