Cross-cultural bash at Moshito

Moshito Music Conference and Exhibition celebrates its opening day with an unmissable live concert featuring a global line-up of cross-cultural artists.

Moshito Presents ‚Ķ takes place on August 31st at Bassline, Newtown and features Colombia’s Sidestepper Sound System: multi-talented SAMA-award winner Nomsa Mazwai: Spain’s Luis Gim√©nez and Toguna from the Reunion Island.

Tickets to the concert cost just R80,00, giving Gauteng-based music fans of global music every reason to get to the Bassline for this once-off line-up of superb artists.

Fresh off appearances at WOMAD Australia (WOMADelaide) and New Zealand, Colombia’s Sidestepper Sound System is a five-piece outfit whose sound is best expressed in the group’s now legendary live shows. Now extending far beyond its initial fusion of classic salsa and club beats, Sidestepper’s music takes in everything from deep Colombian folk influences to hip hop via cumbia, dancehall reggae, dub and afrobeat, layering infectious melodies and crisp harmonies on top of rock solid beats.

May 2011 saw Nomsa Mazwai named winner of the Best Adult Alternative African category at the SAMAS for her debut record, Nomisupa(star). Mazwai’s sound is a blend of Jazz, Afrocentric, Drum ‚n Bass, Electronic and Neo Soul ‚ all presented by an artist who is also an engaged activist and Fulbright scholar.

Spain’s 2004 Luis Gim√©nez is one of Moshito’s conference speakers in 2011, presenting the paper Haul Music: Transnationalism and musical performance in the Saharaui refugee camps of Tindouf, Algeria on September 1st at 11h30. His background as musician has seen Gimenez collaborate with numerous World Music artists including Ahmed Muktar (Iraq), Chartwell Dutiro (Zimbabwe), Stella Chiweshe (Zimbabwe), Linos Wengara ( Zimbabwe), and Andre Oliveira (Brazil) and he brings this wealth of knowledge and experience to his first-ever Moshito live performance.

Winner of the Best band of the year award at the Troph√©es des arts Afro-carib√©ens 2008 in Paris, and signed to Sakifo Records, Reunion Islands Toguna’s most recent album is ‚In Colors’. Like Toguna’s live shows, it captures the group’s folk rock, reggae and acoustic soul sound perfectly and has earned the four-piece comparisons with the likes of Ben Harper.

Moshito Presents…is an explosive and uplifting celebration of the limitless power of music.

*