If you’ve spent any time in Cape Town’s live music circles over the past few years, you’ve probably ended up at 35 Loop Street. The KAYA Café — now operating as KAYA HQ — has quietly become one of the most consistent launchpads for emerging talent in the city. Not through hype or algorithmic positioning, but through something far less glamorous and far more valuable: showing up, night after night, with intentional lineups and a genuine respect for the artists on stage.
For all the scale and prestige that comes with the Cape Town International Jazz Festival (CTIJF), what stayed with us most this year was something more fundamental. It was the love in the room for live music played by actual people, in real time, on actual instruments. Not as nostalgia. Not as a niche concern. As something alive, urgent, and worth gathering for.
There’s a particular kind of artist South African house music produces every few years. Not always the loudest in the room, nor the name pushed hardest on a lineup, but the kind whose presence feels inevitable in hindsight — as if the music has been preparing audiences for them long before the moment arrives.
For Sió, 2026 is shaping up as that year.
Cape Town loves music in a way that’s hard to argue with: you can feel it in the pockets of live performance that keep multiplying, in the crowds that show up when something is truly special, and in the sheer range of sounds that can exist in the same weekend. We’re a city of musicians, listeners, and cultural operators who know how to make something happen — even when conditions aren’t perfect.
There’s a particular kind of artist Cape Town produces every few years. Not the loudest in the room. But the kind whose growth feels inevitable in hindsight — as if each stage was simply waiting for them to arrive.
For Jabulile Majola, 2026 is shaping up as that year.
Cape Town’s live circuit has always had a particular kind of magic: a city where the stage can feel like a laboratory, where the best players aren’t just “supporting” a headline — they’re quietly rewriting the night in real time. And right now, if you’ve been to the right show in the right room, there’s a strong chance the live engine you’re remembering wasn’t only the singer up front.
It was The Hii ROLLERS.
Cape Town loves to call itself a “creative city,” but the truth is harsher: creativity here often survives despite the system, not because of it. Too many brilliant young operators end up trapped in a loop of gig-to-gig survival — curating other people’s line-ups, building other people’s brands, making someone else’s vision feel inevitable. That’s why Thembalethu “Jose” Hadebe launching Juggernaut Entertainment matters more than a personal career milestone. It’s a case study in what South Africa’s culture economy actually needs right now: young creative entrepreneurs building passion-driven businesses with long-term intent.
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.
There’s an immediate clarity to NANI?!‘s latest EP, Everyone’s Lookin’ At Me, before a single note is played. The artwork is striking and memorable, the kind of cover that feels intentional rather than decorative. It sets the tone well for what follows: an EP that’s energetic, messy by design, and more interested in feeling than finesse.
