About this episode

In this episode Awino Okech sits down with South African award winning musician Simphiwe Dana to discuss 20 years in music, artivism and music as therapy

Bio

Simphiwe Dana, a multiple award-winning South African artist. Simphiwe’s commercial and critical success came with her debut album Zandisile in 2004. This was followed by The One Love Movement on Bantu Biko Street in 2007, Kulture Noir in 2010, Firebrand in 2014, and An Evening with Simphiwe Dana Live in Concert and, the 2016 Simphiwe Dana Symphony Experience, featuring Buika and Asa and Bamako in 2020. Dana’s discography, the intellectual and spiritual content of her art primarily pulses with the Xhosa cosmology of her cultural background, is Afrocentric in its temperament and identity. In 2025, Simphiwe celebrates 20 years in the musical industry. We talk to Simphiwe about her work over the last two decades

Credits

Interviewee: Simphiwe Dana 

Interviewer: Awino Okech 

Produced by: The Feminist Centre for Racial Justice 

Sound design, editing, production: Ellan A. Lincoln-Hyde 

Music: Broken by AudioWay, freesound.org; Feeling by Ketsa, freemusicarchive.org