Cape Town’s music scene is usually discussed in fragments. The punk kids are over here. The jazz heads are somewhere else. Rap has its own rooms, its own circuits, its own gravity. DJs and bands only really interact after a band’s set. We talk about “the scene” as if it is singular, but most weekends it behaves like a loose federation of micro-scenes that only occasionally brush shoulders.
That is part of what makes Hey Hey Now Now interesting.
In a music economy increasingly shaped by experiences rather than recordings, the most valuable move an artist can make is no longer just releasing great work or landing prestigious bookings. It’s owning the room itself. In Cape Town, DJ and cultural operator Tashinga’s Winehouse offers a clear case study in what happens when an artist stops being a line item on someone else’s poster and starts building an asset that speaks directly to who they are.
These days, too many events feel designed for people who drift in, snap a few photos, and leave before the night really begins. The music becomes background, the crowd thins by midnight, and the promise of connection gets lost somewhere between the bar and the DJ booth.
By the time the last question was asked last Saturday afternoon, you could feel it: nobody wanted to leave. In a city where meaningful conversations about music often happen in snatched greenroom chats or late-night WhatsApp groups, VERVE’s latest workshop at Obz Books gave Cape Town’s creative community a rare chance to sit down together — artists, managers, journalists, and curious fans alike — and be heard.
The first thing I saw was a pink drink and a pile of scavenger hunt cards. Not the usual start to a Cape Town music launch, but Pretty Loud has no interest in doing things the usual way. On 7 August, co-founders Erin Elliot and Amy Tjasink — two women with the resumes and stage presence to back it up — introduced their new women-centred music collective with The Pyjama Party. Invite-only, unapologetically femme, and designed to feel like the sleepover of your dreams, it doubled as a statement of intent: the future of music in this city is collaborative, not competitive.
There’s a certain kind of hush that falls over a beach crowd when Bongeziwe Mabandla sings — and at Feastival this past Saturday, you could feel it in your chest. Dressed in an ivory Boys of Soweto boiler suit and armed only with his guitar, Mabandla didn’t just headline — he transcended.
Hold on to your music-loving hats, Cape Town, because Francois van Coke & Vriende 2023 is back, and it’s bigger and better than ever before! This year, the event not only returned to its hometown of Pretoria but is also making its Cape Town debut, taking the Mother City by storm on Saturday, 16 September, at Grand Arena, GrandWest.
Homies – Where The Heart Is (Homies) is a one-day event that is set to take place in Woodstock, Cape Town, on 25 March and aims to raise funds for the Woodside Special Care Centre. The event promises to be a fun-filled day of great music, art, delicious food and drinks, and activities for attendees of all ages.
