Afropop Worldwide

There are few artists who can manifest magic by being in the right place, at the right time, with the right people: that was the Bongeziwe experience in Mexico.

The concert I attended on their six city concert tour of Mexico was produced by tour managers Oyameles, and took place at Hacienda Ucil, a restored henequen plantation managed by the Haciendas del Mundo Maya Foundation. Henequen derives from the agave plant which fueled an economic and cultural boom in the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico. By 1898 when the Spanish–American War broke out, the price of this fiber rose considerably along with sisal which advanced the Yucatan as a major industrial hub. This henequen production and processing provided among many other things the ropes for the mooring of shipping vessels during the war. Henequen has a deep rich history worth investigating as it created immense wealth for the Yucatan which became the richest state in the whole of Mexico from 1880-1915. Merida the capital and the center of activity to regulate and eventually abolish slavery, the forced evictions, serfdom and labor of Maya people who planted, harvested and processed the fibre.

After the demise of the henequen industry with the emergence of synthetic fibers which displaced henequen and sisal fibers, many plantations were abandoned but many are being restored and Hacienda del Mundo Maya is one of these foundations, correcting the wrongs of the past by revitalizing these economic monuments of the past and providing new opportunities to communities impacted by this tragic history by promoting the identity, recognition and rescue of the Mayan culture. This is the context of the Bongeziwe experience in Mexico which I felt is worth mentioning, as it is the redemption of exploited peoples in a unique historical environment. This all gave more meaning to the Merida performance of South African Bongeziwe and Mozambican Tiago Correia-Paulo composer, instrumentalist and producer where for me peace was made with the past.

They were already on the stage doing a soundcheck when I first met them under a sacred symbol of Maya mythology, a ceiba tree above a cenote, which is an underground fresh-water river. It was an auspicious full moon in the Yucatan, Mexico on April 7 and before they even began I knew I would be experiencing something quite out of this world.

To open the show, sacred Maya rituals were performed by Múul Paax, which translates from Yucateca Maya as "music between us.” This pre-Hispanic Mayan music ensemble, in which young musicians have built and play their own instruments, reinterprets the Mayan worldview through music. This is another project financed and supported by Haciendas del Mundo Maya Foundation.

Black Major, the South African music agency represents both Bongeizwe and Tiago is carving out a niche by curating the careers of South African artists committed to global collaborations and cultural exchange. For this tour they collaborated with Oyameles, a human-centered community project producing experiences and based in Bosque Coyoltepec, just outside Mexico City and Listen Up Biz promo services based in London and Los Angeles.

All this energy came together for an unforgettable evening of Bongeziwe’s unique tour of Mexico. Intimate holistic settings were the vibe complimented the selection of songs from Bongeziwe´s new studio album amaXesha, meaning “the times,” released on May 5.

Bongeziwe already has two South African Music Awards (SAMA) for Best Alternative Album, and is a fixture on the European touring circuit over the past five years. For this particular concert the combination of the chosen space, time and place is part of what redefines a concert into an elevated experience. Bongeziwe chose the theme of the evening to explore human relationships and finding love but the twist is the music transported our hearts but also our feet. As spiritual electric beings sound is the ancient technology to transmute space, place and time as the ancients did to influence the events and outcomes of their world while herding cattle. Bongeziwe is directing us to a higher dimension with his timeless music.

It was these ancient voices in communication which all converged like a spark at the right time, at the right place with the right producer and management team. Tiago Correia-Paulo and Bongeziwe Mabandla are two great artists in their own right, because you cannot talk about one without the other, once you see the Bongeziwe experience live. I spoke to both of them the day after the concert in Merida, Mexico. We roamed the streets trying to find a quiet space to catch up before they moved on with their breakneck tour onto Tulum and Bacalar. We settled for a corner in a loud restaurant but they were both eager to shed light on their musical partnership and inspiration.

Mukwae Wabei Siyolwe:I want to hear your story. Tell me, how did you guys meet? What happened?

Bongeziwe Mabandla: So when I started music, I was signed. I met the drummer from 340ml, which was the group that he was playing in, but I was working with the drummer Paulo Jorge Chibanga, also from Mozambique. He sort of first discovered me and I started making my first works with him.

And this is Johannesburg? Jo'burg?

Bongeziwe: In Johannesburg. And so what had happened was, because they had signed me and they were a band by themselves, I started opening up for shows that they were playing, and that's how I got to meet him [Tiago]. But we didn't speak much.

Tiago Correira Paulo: Yeah, we didn't spend a lot of time together. Also, you were very much involved with Paulo because we were like a semi popular band in South Africa, and our drummer and our bass player were very focused on the band being bigger than just a band. They wanted to be a label. They wanted to be involved in publishing, and work with different artists. Bongeziwe is one of the artists that Paulo Jorge Chibanga found. And they started really connecting, spending a lot of time in the studio, whereas my principal focus at that time was the band and writing the stuff for the band and just being involved and not with the whole label side.

So I think that's why I always enjoyed when you used to come on the road with us and play shows. I wasn't really very actively involved in his career in terms of music. I think Rui Soeiro and Paulo were very much always very involved in all the label stuff. And I think it was when I left the band that I started seeing Bongeziwe as an artist and not part of 340ml, because we are still brothers, all of us in the band. I ended up stepping away from the band. I wanted to get out of it for many, many years. And I think what happened eventually, I just stopped seeing Bongeziwe as an artist that was part of that label. I just paid attention to what he was doing. And a very dear friend of ours. She lives in New York and I'd been working with her band for a while. We were trying to get some songs going, and she knew that I was out of the band, and I was kind of going into the world of production, and she connected us. She was like, oh, I have the perfect person. Because Bongeziwe had been to LA.

Bongeziwe: Yeah. With One Beat.

Tiago: Yeah. And then we were working together and she mentioned, you know who you should work with… Bongeziwe.

Interesting. She has good eye or a good ear.

Tiago: And I was like, wow. And then one day we were in town. You were in the middle of a recording session, but walking around in this very urban area in downtown Jo’burg, we saw each other. And then that was the first time that we officially discussed the possibility of spending some time together in studio. But what was nice with Bongeziwe I have to say is that, he had like the same management, the same person who the person that I really know and that I trust. And then when the conversation came for us to work together, we didn't have the conversation as friends or musicians. The label got involved, his management, and we were like, O.K., let's schedule. So it felt like from the beginning, it felt like it was worth it. It felt like we were about to do something and we went straight to it. I think it was the first time we booked five days in the studio.

Bongeziwe: Yeah.

Tiago: Five days in studio and we wrote five demos.

That's amazing. Wow. I mean, it's just like super interesting how you guys compliment each other because your music is so specific. It's true folk music, you know? So the fact that you had the wherewithal to add these incredible different kinds of textuality to it, is just mind boggling to me. And so were you guys surprised when you actually started playing with each other?

Bongeziwe: Yeah, I think when we got into the studio it was when I realized… Because I did come from a very folk, acoustic kind of background, very influenced by artists like Nneka,

Asa,

Lauren Hill,

India Arie.

Bongeziwe: Those kinds of artists. And that's what I thought my music was all about. But then when I started working with Tiago, I could tell there was a big shift that was about to happen and it wasn't easy because I thought I really knew what my music was about. And at that time it was like, I'm not going to change my sound. My sound is so important. But it was also my management who was like, I think you should try out different things. I think I was kind of skeptical until Tiago said, just imagine what we can create, something like Little Dragon.

meets Madala Cunene.

Tiago: Also, his voice has such a transcendental quality. It just has this quality that you can lift it. Ever since the moment I heard him, and I work with a lot of singers… The truth is, some people don't have the X factor. They'll sing everything in tune, be super pristine about their art and mechanics as artists. But there's something an artist that has an X factor, that has something that you can't really put your finger on. And I always find that more interesting because whatever you add to that equation will in itself be bonded to that X factor. So if you take his voice and you put death metal, you will have something interesting. Like, the formula is already there with him from the beginning. He’s a South African artist from the Eastern Cape, and there are a lot of South African artists, artists from the Eastern Cape. In fact, most of our favorite musicians are from the Eastern Cape in South African because they have a specific sound.

Right.

How do we take his voice and maybe take it a little bit away from that sound? Like, bring something new. Try and reinvent it because there's some kind of artistry. Something interesting is coming out.

Like I said, the first couple of days that we sat in studio were absolutely magical, and the label couldn't even believe that we in three days had made five songs. Five demos, and one of them became the biggest song from that album, “Ndokulandela.”

“Wena” was the second song we wrote.

You had written the whole of “Wena,” with guitar and vocals. Basically, I just recorded him, and it was like a movie. We spoke about what the lyrics meant:

I will follow you wherever you go

I will walk by you all the days of my life

all of my heart I put before you

I no longer have any power

help me father let me in

and point the way so that I can go

I heard something that was purely gospel about it, the message. And I was like, O.K., how do I just lift it sonically? And “Ndokulandela” was the same thing. We were just talking about African music. What we love about African artists like Amadou and Mariam, Oumou Sangare, Oliver Mutukudzi, we're just, like, talking about all these artists. I said, O.K., let's mess around with these sounds, but still make it something that is its own thing. How do you do it? Put a synth, put a drum machine, substitute an African rhythm, play it on a drum machine with electronic drums. And I think that from that moment forward, that kind of became our thing. We also got super positive feedback from the label and from the agents, and that started becoming our way of doing things. And when we got to “iimini,” we didn't know how to do things in a different way.

That’s amazing. Well, I totally hear you. In terms of that foundation, I think that the Xhosa folk foundation is the original mother of all music in the Eastern Cape which continues with the legendary current mother of this music, Modisini. It's got all the tones, so it totally makes sense.

Tiago: But his natural voice, natural harmony, melody that comes if he sings something to you now, it's the same way. Like when Oumou Sangare sings something, there's an inflection; there's a melody.

You can never take away where he's from, what he means, where his history is. It's impossible. Even if he sings a cover song, it's impossible. So then you just add me, I have the easiest job in the world.

Yeah, but you're very skilled. I mean, “you got skills.” I'm loving what's happening to electronic music when played live on stage, the mixing and instrumentation is now becoming live action, in the moment. Producers can now be seen, and we can see just how musical you really are, that you don't just play the guitar, but the drums, the synths. Have you always been a multi-instrumentalist?

Tiago: No, it's because of producing. I wanted to kind of play everything. I never really liked computers and MIDI too much, so I've always wanted to know how to play things enough to be able to make music. And it got to a point where I had two bands. I felt like the guys that I played with weren't making music fast enough. So I would say, “Guys, let's write a song,” and I would send, like, a guitar part or whatever, and no one would send me back stuff. And then I started like, “O.K., I have to do it myself”.

Let me just play the whole song.

And it started like that. And then a drum kit. There's something playful about music. Truly playful. He knows me. [Pointing to Bongeziwe]

Tiago: If we walk into a place and there's a piano or some instrument, I'm going to play it, and I'll be there for 45 minutes, because I just naturally have that playfulness. But I like to know just enough.

That's amazing. So what about your influences, Bongeziwe? You said you went to church. That's where you were listening and performing.

Bongeziwe: Basically, yeah, But I think that church story got overplayed.

I'm not going to talk about it then.

[Laughter]

No. I wonder where I said it. It just keeps coming back. I mean, I grew up in the Eastern Cape, and I definitely grew up in a time and in a place where there wasn't much to do. We used to play and listen to the radio with a battery, and then the battery would end. So music was something that we didn't have a lot of access to.

Right.

Because you couldn't play with the battery the whole day.

Exactly. So crazy. Imagine we don’t even think about those things these days.

Yeah. It would end and you'd get in trouble. Because you finished the whole battery on just playing music.

On foolishness. On clowning, as my father used to say.

Tiago: On clowning!

[Laughter]

Bongeziwe: Yes, on clowning. So, like, where I grew up, music was always like a great escape and a way to sort of entertain in a rural setting.

Was it rural? Rural like nothing and no one there?

No, not too rural. Like a small town with one main road. So it wasn't very rural. But because of that, not having been exposed or easy access to watch TV and listen to music or play the radio, I think we got into the habit of liking a song and then keeping it in our heads and then singing it and playing it. When I grew up we used to do a lot of home concerts.

Staged it yourself. I think every musician has done that.

[Laughter]

Yeah. I think it was also hip to know the latest song, latest Boys to Men song, the latest Whitney Houston song. And because there was no equipment, it was all like, sort of a capella.

Yeah and air guitars.

Yeah, air guitars.

Were you one of those kids that made a wooden guitar?

No, I wasn't.

With a Southern African jerry can? You know, a container. You know those containers?

Tiago: Yeah. Yeah.

Bongeziwe: I never had aspirations growing up to play an instrument. I never thought about it. I always wanted to just be a singer, but a traditional singer. And it's only, I think, when I heard Tracy Chapman, that I started listening to music. When I was a bit older in high school I heard Tracy Chapman and Lauren Hill. The Lauren Hill album.

MTV Unplugged?

Yes, it was super influential. I mean, I loved music, but when I heard that album, I became really obsessed with music and expressing myself because I fell in love with that album. It said a lot of things I thought about, but I didn't know people were singing about those kinds of things.

Bongeziwe: So, you know, when you're a teenager, you find your thing and I did with that album. I found what I was about and that's how the guitar thing started.

Interesting. Did you learn to play the guitar by ear?

No, I was actually at art school.

Where?

In Lady Gray. Lady Gray Arts Academy. And I was doing drama and visual art and a lot and then when I was in grade 11.

That explains all of your interests.

Yeah. So when I was in grade 11 in January, the principal in the hall was like, “Hey guys, welcome to the new year. We have a new guitar specialist and he says, is anyone interested in playing guitar?” And I'd been listening to this Lauren Hill album and I was like, “I'd really like to try it”. And I didn't even have a guitar. So the house mistress I was staying at boarding house with, she was like, “Oh, I have an extra guitar, so you can borrow it and you can go and learn”. And I started learning and maybe after six songs in, they were teaching me like “Three Blind Mice” just like very English songs. And then I was like, “No, can you teach me these Lauren Hill songs? I know the syllabus, but I don't want to learn the syllabus”. And my teacher found it really interesting that I didn’t want to learn the syllabus and I was telling him that I wanted to learn Lauren Hill. And so he started teaching me Lauren Hill songs. Bob Marley songs.

That's so much fun.

India.Aire and… And two years later, I was out of school and I was in varsity in Joburg.

Where'd you go to varsity?

I went AFDA in Johannesburg also to study acting.

So you're really an actor?

[Laughter]

Yeah. But then when I got to this big city, I kind of like…

Did you go to the Market Theatre and see the shows in Joburg?

No. I wanted to be on Isidingo [a South African soap opera].

And Generations?

I was on Generations.

[Laughter]

Oh, you were on Generations. Oh my goodness. You know, Mfundi Vundla [South African film and TV producer]. I worked on one of his plays in the U.K..

Oh, cool.

It was called Visitor to the Veldt. Yeah, well, he didn't direct me. Themba Theatre company took his play and he was there. He was part of it.

Yeah. I never got to meet him a lot.

That's amazing. Wow. O.K., so which episode am I supposed to be looking for? [checks phone.[ Oh, wow. Oh, you were regular?

[Laughter]

No, I had a couple of episodes. I came to Joburg in 2004, so and I got the Joburg in 2005.

That's pretty fast.

Yeah, I was super determined when I got the job.

Well, I think you're a pretty determined person now. I think since I met you with just the two stories you just told us. You are motivated. Yeah, you’re working it out.

I knew I was from the Eastern Cape. I mean, it was hard, but I was like, I'm going to get a job on TV. And also when I got that Generations job, it was sort of why I came to Joburg, to be on TV. So it happened so fast. So I was like, oh shit, dreams can happen.

Yes, they happen. You speak, you think and it happens.

So I was like, I need to elevate. Yeah. I had to be like, oh, I'm on Generations. So now I can actually expand my mind and what do I really want to do? And music, I think, was one of the things that I wanted.

That's cool. But I mean, if you're an actor, you're always an actor. You'll be in and out of that for all of your life. I'm sure somebody is ready to cast you.

[Laughter]

No, but I got super bored with acting as well.

Well, yeah, it's kind of mindless where you just follow directions and don’t cultivate a mind of your own but what the director wants. That's amazing. So cool. So talk to me about this new album.

Tiago: We have 10 minutes.

Bongiziwe: At the beginning of COVID I released this other album called iimini, my third album. It did super well. And people really related to the songs so easily and it was a super exciting time in my career because I think I had worked all these other years, sort of…

You did that together with Tiago as well?

Yes, our second album together. O.K. And I was super excited because I felt like I've been trying to create an album like that, and it took me two albums to actually arrive in a very comfortable place and I was super proud of it and excited about it, and it did super well. And then COVID happened. So my management was like, I think there's no shows. We need to create something new. And we weren't sure what we were creating. So, yeah, I decided to do a sort of side B to the album and continue the same topics I was doing. Yeah, it was a very different album because of the distance and because of COVID.

[To Tiago] So were you in South Africa? Do you live in South Africa? Permanently.

No.

Bongeziwe: You had just moved by then.

Tiago: I had moved out with the intention of building a recording studio in the city of Maputo, but then COVID hit, so I went into a remote surf/slash fishing village, like an eight hour drive away from Maputo, and I just was isolated there. I didn't want to be in the city during COVID. I went to a place where there's a lot of sea and I could walk around, and I spent a whole year there. And that's kind of like, how Bongeziwe was in Joburg, but we were kind of feeling the same thing. We also were both like, Iimini is an album that I'm super proud of. It just gave us both a visceral second album. And we even ended up getting dumped by Universal Music, dumped by a big label because we believed in the album so much. His management was super supportive, but they were also, guys, we're gonna do it with you guys. Basically that’s the story of Iimini. We did that album in 21 days. He had the songs, he had a message. We recorded Zange in one second, looked back and said should we take that song? Let's redo that now. It's like always going forward. O.K., now we're doing all the drums, now we're doing vocals, now we're doing this. It's a very impulsive album, and when we were going to release it, Universal Music is like, we don't like this album, we want more hits. We want it to be more like the old album, which they also didn't like in the beginning.

So why were they even there?

Yeah, so eventually his management could take the deal and got him out of Universal.

Oh, that's amazing. So the album was still released under Universal?

No, on a different label, Platoon. O.K., but in the midst of all of this, we’re in the middle of COVID and we started getting the feedback for the album and everyone’s saying, “Oh my God, this is so beautiful.” It was very rewarding to trust something and to know that people heard it the way we wanted them to hear it, because they were commenting about our intros to the songs, how that song fused into the other song, how everything dies out. And the vocal on this verse, like how the chorus never comes back. Like all these things that we spoke about. Should we have another chorus? Nah, it's perfect like this. If they want it, they will listen. It felt like we had preempted a lot of things based on our own feelings.

You trusted your gut.

Bongeziwe: Coming off from the pressure. It was really hard to make another album when you feel like you had big success with the last album, hard to sort of come back and get into the studio.

Tiago: And also not wanting to repeat anything, wanting to do something new.

Yeah. Interesting.

Bongeziwe: So there was a lot of pressure and the timing was a bit off and it was challenging to be in the same in place

Because this is during COVID.

Yeah. And the writing is happening at home without really experiencing life, it was really challenging.

Tiago: The first song that he sent me, Libali was like super beautiful. It was a WhatsApp recording, right? Super haunting, super beautiful. And it had the essence of Iimini because Iimini was very low fi, a haunting melody. But it had something. It was like a B side. It had something. It was like a page turner. And I remember thinking the first thing when I heard that, it was like, “Can you send me just the vocals?” Just sing the vocal, take out the guitar. And I had this piano and we started laying like a piano in his voice. And we had never really done that. And that was the page-turner. And that's when I started thinking, O.K., let's maybe work more with synthesizers, drum machines. Let's try and reinvent something. Let's try and reinvent ourselves. Not in terms of the sound. And we had all this time that COVID allowed us, which is not a good thing, it was not how we worked because t makes you go back forward, redo vocals because there's so much time and you're floating. No not good.

Right. There was no pressure. Creativity thrives on pressure.

Right. You’re not really touring. And you have two days in studio to finish this. No. You're like, yeah, you have two weeks here. Whenever you have time, you can you do this. I can go to Joburg or spend five days in the studio, then he can come here. This album is more like a conversation.

Bongeziwe: Yeah. Separate. We didn't record in the same room a lot, and that concerned me. And we recorded in France. Recorded in Holland. Recorded in Maputo. We recorded in Joburg. Yeah. So it was sort of a challenge.

Yeah. That's amazing. The work is great. I mean, for me, I'm really interested in you just drowning out amapiano for a second.

[Laughter]

…because it's like, wait a minute, there is so much other music coming out of South Africa that’s not amapiano and I really want to hear it. So when I heard your stuff, I was like, oh, O.K.. This is it. This is a new genre. Yeah, because it is, I would say I mean, if you were to give your genre a name, what would you call it?

Bongeziwe: Yeah. I mean, the thing is about my music, it does draw from many different places. Even before you include Tiago. I grew up loving like r&b. Whitney Houston. But I as I got older, I started loving artists like Busi Mhlongo.

Oxamu (Live At The Market Theater, Johannesburg / 2006). Jabu Khanyile. Mmalo We.

Tiago: Yes and in the voice you can hear it. Just the energy to the vibe.

Thandiswa Mazwai.

Yes. Simphiwe Dana.

So I draw a lot from different styles and then also the American influence from artists like Lauren Hill, Tracy Chapman. And then when you include electro hip-hop synth, yeah. It becomes a mash, but for me it´s soul music, Xhosa Soul Music. O.K., I'm going to make that as a genre.

Tiago: There are things that we kind of merge. Chronologically. There's certain sound. It's not like songs or artists. There's a sound that we like for example, maybe Iimini, we were like completely obsessed with Blonde, Frank Ocean album. We were super obsessed with that album, sonically not because of the songs, but it was like we were both in our own separate world. And also we love artists like Bonnie Iver. And it's not just because of the songs; it's because of how they structure things. These things that they do that kind of don't really make sense, but somehow make sense. For me if the best guitar take that he has was recorded on my phone backstage for a show, to me it's not a question of, you have to go in the studio and record. NO! Recording is this mechanism used to filter sound and what you want to say and how you want to say it. Recording is not based on quality. It's not based on all these measures. It's based on your intimacy, your relationship that you have with what you're doing.

Absolutely.

I mean, that grainy video that you took on your iPhone underneath the toilet is good enough to broadcast.

And that's the beauty of being independent, where now the record companies don't have a chokehold on everybody and artists just record and release themselves. And you can be an independent artist and be successful without all of that contracts stuff. And so I'm really wanting to spotlight that because there's a lot of young artists right now, who signed these big record deals, and their hands are tied. They can't do anything because the label might want to control the sound, control everything. So it's really good to see somebody, people talented as you are, who are running their own shows. I look forward to hearing more. And it's been such an honor to see you at this incredible, beautiful Hacienda Ucil. It was a dream last night. Thank you.

Bongeziwe: I just wanted to add this also, I think before I worked with Tiago, I didn't really know why people needed producers. He's an example of what a great producer is.

Yes, a producer and who is also playing with you.

Tiago: It is not so unusual, by the way. Also, I'm deeply invested in the project because I see you. Yeah, like I said, like he has the X factor. Not every artist that walks through my studio, through my door, has something that I want to work with that it makes my life so much easier and I can be a minimalist. I'm a minimalist soul. I don't like excess baggage I like complexity, but through a filter of simplicity. If you have someone in the studio who can do something simple, I don't need intricate vocals. I don't need super intelligence. Those are the things that I appreciate. I like the simplicity. I like the roughness of something that is raw, something that's raw, and Bongeziwe has that. And also his looks, where he comes from, how he sings, the message. It makes him have integrity. He’s not just a singer but a producer, a curator, we love making music videos together. We love coming up with concepts like thinking about album art.

Yes. I love, love some of that stuff.

How we're going to do the vinyl, how we're going to shoot, like, a live show. It just makes what I do super interesting. And the fact that he has a label, people behind him who have the same kind of mentality, who are like, Black Major there's always this kind of template. It's like, how can we stay relevant, be cool and hip? O.K., who are the artists? Once an artist is super huge and big, then you stop looking at them. Start looking at whoever's gonna be the next big thing. We spoke about Little Dragon. The biggest thing is that it's not like we don't like them anymore, but we're more attracted to the energy of this thing that's being created and about to become the next thing.

Yes.

And I can see from who you are, and how you are, that you draw from that same youthful energy. When you told me your age yesterday I…

[Laughter]

I was like, not possible. So you're also doing this, and you're always chasing this energy. Not the energy that's there but the energy that's coming and this project has that. It's going somewhere.

Yes. I must thank you. So is the car waiting outside for them already?
We're connected.

You have my number.

He's got your number. I'll get it off to him. Let's walk up. Yeah, let's walk up together. You were incredible thanks so much.

Thank you so much.

Tiago: Pleasure to meet you as well.

Bongeziwe: Definitely.

________________________

Bongeziwe continues the world tour

https://www.instagram.com/bong...
Jun. London, UK. 100 Club.
Jun. Amsterdam, Netherlands. Bitterzoet.
Jun. London, UK. 100 Club.
Jun. Johannesburg, South Africa. The Nest,
Jun. Cape Town, South Africa. The Terrace Rooftop,
Jun. Cape Town, South Africa. ...
Jul. Luzern, Switzerland.

Artists - Bongeziwe Mabandla (@bongeziwemabandla) and Tiago Correia-Paulo (@a1000000things)
Black Mayor (@blackmajorsa) and agent Sevi Spanoudi (@spanoudi)
Oyameles (@oyameles) Mexico tour managers with Carlos Hinojosa (@_hisnameischarles_) Jessica Said (@jessicasaid, Daniel Ehrlich @ehrlich1

Leanne Allen (@listenupbiz)

There were 6 concerts in Mexico and these were the major movers making it happen:

Departamento Studio Bar (@departamento_studiobar) in Mexico City with producer Eduardo Limón

Oyameles (@oyameles) outside Mexico City in Edo Mex with producer with the mostest Carlos Hinojosa (@_hisnameischarles_)

Props to Jessica Said (@jessicasaid) for her images and video and Daniel Ehrlich (@ehrlich1) producer #1

Inherente Films in collaboration with (@alejandraartigas) https://www.facebook.com/inher...

Habitas in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato you can find (@habitassanmiguel)

Hacienda Ochil you can find at contact@fhmm.org and in Mérida, Yucatan (@somos.fogata) with producers Alejandra Artigas de la Macorra (@lala_artigas) and Joe Lopez Coll (@jlopezcoll)

Our Habitas in Bacalar (@habitasbacalar)

Our Habitas in Tulum @habitastulum and the producer of all Habitas concerts they give thanks to Eduardo Castillo (@eduardocastillo)