Khaid and Ayo Maff Deliver their Anthem, ‘ROVER’

Oct 10, 2025 | New Release, Music

Khaid returns with his latest single “ROVER”, a collaboration with Ayo Maff that pushes the boundaries of Afro pop. Blending Alte rhythms, highlife flows and introspective lyricism, ROVER is a layered narrative about love, ambition and the reality of modern hustle.


For Khaid, ROVER reflects a shift in perspective:

“Weighing the rate of genuine and fake love surrounding me makes me see life differently. Old-school highlife songs always told stories beneath the party vibes — I wanted to do the same. While I want people to enjoy the energy, it’s also a reminder to focus on your hustle and goals instead of distractions that slow you down.”

Ayo Maff, who brings his own sharp lyricism to the track, resonates deeply with its themes:

“This song really aligns with my sound and experience. When I say ‘Who said money can’t buy love?’ and ‘If you get the rabba make you buy the GLE, when you get the money you go know your enemies,’ it’s about the reality of success — people will always have something to say, but your grind speaks louder.”


With ROVER, the duo deliver a track that is both danceable and thought-provoking — an anthem for the ambitious generation navigating love, loyalty and self-worth.


Listen to ‘ROVER’ here

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Press release courtesy of Shelia Afari PR

GRAMMY® AWARD-NOMINATED R&B ARTIST JOSH LEVI RELEASES HIS DEBUT ALBUM

Oct 10, 2025 | New Release, Music

GRAMMY® Award-nominated artist Josh Levi returns with the evocative slow jam, “HOLD ON”. The deeply sensual track heralds the arrival of Levi’s debut studio album, “HYDRAULIC”.

HYDRAULIC marks the start of an extraordinary new era for Josh Levi. The album includes such recent favorites as “DON’T GO,” joined by a high-energy official music video – directed by London-based filmmaker Ben Cole (Alicia Keys, Kylie Minogue) and featuring choreography by the renowned Sean Bankhead (FKA Twigs, Tate McRae) – streaming now at YouTube HERE. In addition, an electrifying performance of “DON’T GO” captured live from Vevo Studios is streaming HERE.

On “Hold On” Josh Levi shares, ”hold on is about giving your best shot and trying to hold on to something you’re unsure about. It’s a split conversation with myself and someone I care about— that moment where you catch the mixed signals, but you also catch yourself before you let someone mess with your dignity. this song is for the people that can’t hold back how they feel because they’ve learned not to be taken for granted.”

Levi first introduced fans to HYDRAULIC with the hypnotic “FEEL THE BA$$ (Prelude) [Feat. BEAM],” available everywhere HERE. Hailed by Rated R&B as “an early bid for summer anthem” for its “knocking production and club-friendly lyrics (that) make you want to get up and dance,” the innovative, booming bass-driven track is joined by an official visualizer streaming HERE. 

Named by PEOPLE among “The 25 Emerging Musical Artists You Should Add to Your Playlist” as well as by EBONY as one of “9 Artists That Need Your Attention,” Levi spent 2024 winning over audiences with an array of show-stealing live appearances, including a special guest run with breakthrough rap duo Flyana Boss on their sold-out Bosstanical Garden Tour and a festival debut performance alongside Lil Wayne, Summer Walker, Latto, Gucci Mane, and more at Dallas, TX’s TwoGether Land. 2025 saw him ascend even higher, with Spotify declaring him along the year’s “Artists To Watch” and surprise role as special guest on R&B supergroup FLO’s Access All Areas Tour, highlighted by sold-out shows in New York, Toronto, Chicago, Los Angeles, and his hometown of Houston, TX. With all that powerful energy at his back, Josh Levi is now poised to push to even greater heights with his full-length debut album, HYDRAULIC, rising to the vanguard of modern R&B with his dynamic vocals, soulful spirit, and captivating breadth of experience. 

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Listen to ‘HYDRAULIC’ here

Press release courtesy of Reliable PR

 

Beauty Is a Paradox We Can’t Stop Participating In

Oct 9, 2025 | Most Read, Lifestyle, Community

As science and technology push beauty toward transhumanism, the landscape of aesthetic possibility is expanding at an unprecedented rate. From face-tightening wraps that promise instant sculpting to AI-guided cosmetic procedures that remove the guesswork from transformation, our bodies are increasingly subject to the same logic that governs our devices: iterate, optimise, upgrade. And yet, as the means to manipulate and enhance ourselves proliferate, the frameworks to understand or regulate these choices seem deeply contradictory. Much like our experience navigating digital spaces, beauty has become a deeply personal frontier; an arena in which desire, artifice and self-expression are constantly in tension, and in which the burden of ethical discernment has shifted from the collective to the individual. Well, like most things today. 

Few products embody this new terrain as starkly as the Skims Seamless Sculpt Face Wrap. A sleek, flesh-toned band that promises a snatched jawline without surgery, it caused an intense outcry when it was deployed into the public sphere. Of course, Kim K — the single best known bastion of 21st-century augmentation — would be the one to mainstream a product that literalises the desire for an instant, surgically sculpted face. Additionally, the face wrap doubles as a post-surgical support following a facelift, intersecting the idea of a recovery tool as a fashion accessory.

The Face Wrap speaks to a world in which the boundaries between product, prosthesis, and persona are increasingly obscured. Previously, beauty practices were largely constrained by the physical limits of the body and the slow pace of cultural trends. Today, beauty and medical aesthetics are embedded in a technological ecosystem that treats the face and body as modifiable interfaces. Beauty products are expected to mimic surgical effects, pre-empt procedures, or extend their aftercare into daily life. Increasingly, they draw on the language and techniques of medical aesthetics, but are marketed like lifestyle accessories – sleek, easy to use, visually striking, and designed to sell a dream as much as a result.

Skims Seamless Sculpt Face Wrap, via @skims IG

Imagery by Jelly Luise, via Pexels

I know this terrain intimately. I’ve had a boob job. I get botox, and, at the same time, I make deliberate choices to use “clean” beauty where I can. A breast lift at 24 remains one of my best personal decisions (and after I have kids one day, I fully intend to get the itty bitty fashion titties I’ve always dreamed of) and best believe, I will greet my future facelift like an old friend. Consider it my long-term skincare plan. 

I live in the contradiction; augmenting some parts of myself with surgical procedures while rejecting certain chemical formulations, pursuing anti-ageing interventions while claiming a kind of naturalness elsewhere. 

The beauty choices I make are neither perfectly ethical nor wholly artificial; they are negotiated, shifting, and sometimes wildly inconsistent. And this, I believe, is a cultural condition rather than my own personal failing. We are living at a time in which our bodies are sites of constant decision-making, where we navigate overlapping logics – capitalism, self-expression, environmentalism, vanity, resistance – without a single moral map to guide us. 

From a feminist perspective, I can recognise my pursuit to bend toward the patriarchal gaze; still, I also locate genuine agency within these choices. I’m both participating in and pushing against the structures that shape my desires. The tension between internalised ideals and self-determined expression will never resolve neatly; these tensions are manifest in the everyday negotiations I make with my mirror, my wallet, and my politics. They are shrouded in my deepest insecurities, and they mark key junctures in my pursuit of liberation. My choices exist in a feedback loop with the culture that produced them: I am both shaped by, and a shaper of, the aesthetic codes I inhabit. 

For now, I am totally accepting of this. Well, maybe until installing a microchip becomes the final act of devotion to the mirror, or a prerequisite at the medi-spa. 

What fascinates me most right now is how quickly beauty is becoming a space in which the line between human and machine will entangle, way before the supposed ‘singularity’ of generative AI. We are already witnessing algorithmically defined beauty standards — filters that subtly (or not so subtly) narrow noses, enlarge eyes, sharpen jawlines, and cosmetic surgeons use machine learning to predict “ideal” proportions. 

Imagery by Laura Villela, via Pexels

Imagery by Jelly Luise, via Death to Stock

The convergence of biotechnology, AI, and cosmetic industries points to a future where the human form is going to be endlessly optimisable. It’s impossible and irresponsible to talk about this future without acknowledging its proximity to the harrowing notions of eugenics. While historical eugenics operated through overt state control, our eugenics-coded beauty ideals are engineered, disseminated, and reinforced by invisible systems intended to sell us products and procedures, while upholding systemic white supremacy and Eurocentric beauty standards. 

What is certain, is that these technological advancements will first be reserved for the ultra-wealthy, asserting new aesthetic and biological hierarchies. From there, they will trickle down class by class, to the rest of us, diffused through trends and aspirational culture. Still, none of us will escape the future they set in motion; we will all live, in some way, within the aesthetic and genetic frameworks they inaugurate. 

Over the next few decades, our aesthetic vocabulary is likely to expand far beyond injectables and implants. We may see genetically tailored beauty traits, or surfaces that integrate technology into skin. “Looking human” may become just one option among many. Even as we hurtle toward this transhuman aesthetic future, some truths persist. The pursuit of perfection — whether through ancient kohl, 18th-century corsetry, or 21st-century AI interventions — has always carried contradictions. It is both an act of self-determination and a submission to collective ideals. We all engage with it to some degree, whether we straddle the line between the empowering and the oppressive, knowingly or unknowingly. 

When perfection becomes infinitely possible, its contradictions inevitably multiply. The tensions within the beauty space will only deepen; each enhancement brings new questions. Where does self-expression end and social pressure begin? What values are encoded into the technologies we adopt? And who gets to decide what beauty should look like in an age where even the literal limits of flesh can be restructured?

From my perspective, no real universal ethical or aesthetic framework exists to govern this evolving terrain. There is no collective handbook for how to navigate an impending age in which beauty practices can be simultaneously surgical, algorithmic, organic, and performative — or just totally alien-like. There is only us, as the individual, standing in the flux and tasked with forging a stance that feels somewhat coherent. Sarte asserted that in the absence of predetermined moral structures, we are condemned to be free: responsible for inventing our own values and living with the weight of those choices. My decision to inject my furrowed brow with Dysport is, in that sense, an existential one. Yes — it really is that deep.

For me, the path forward is bound by acknowledging my contradictions and ensuring my personal politics don’t betray themselves through unexamined participation. It means treating beauty beyond any fixed moral category, and it also means holding space for ambivalence, curiosity, and choice. At the same time, I do believe that economic distribution is a moral issue — so while I can accept individual aesthetic choices as complex and personal, I cannot ignore the broader structures that determine who has access to transformation, or if this is even experienced as freedom across different social and economic realities.

It also means, philosophically and politically, reckoning with how I understand and accept the human experience; where its limits lie, what kinds of transformation are actually meaningful, and what it means to live within a body that is clearly both malleable and finite.

Each of us must decide what kind of relationship we want to have with the technologies of our own becoming. Whether we lean into enhancement, resist it, or — like most — inhabit the contradictory middle ground, the ethical work is ours to do. I bid you well in your path in doing so. 

Written by Holly Beaton

For more news, visit the Connect Everything Collective homepage www.ceconline.co.za

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Design Week South Africa returns to Joburg on 9-12 October 2025

Oct 8, 2025 | Lifestyle, News, Community

Design Week South Africa is an expansive city-wide series of events and immersive experiences that showcase the future of South African design through knowledge-share, inclusivity and support. 

Launched in 2024 with more than 90 activations, discussions, showcases, workshops and exhibitions across Johannesburg and Cape Town, Design Week South Africa aims to be the country’s leading design platform. This year, from 9 – 12 October, Johannesburg will come alive as Design Week South Africa 2025 returns, spotlighting the city’s creativity, innovation and bold design thinking.

For its second edition, the four-day programme introduces Morning Sessions, a new format that brings dialogue out of a formal stage and into the city’s cafes. Each morning, from Thursday to Sunday (9:00 – 10:30am), leading creatives will share the ideas, challenges and inspirations driving their practice over coffee in intimate, relaxed gatherings — no slides, no presentations, just insight, curiosity and connection.

Curator of Morning Sessions, Simone Schultz shares, ‘With our inaugural Morning Sessions programme, we hope to encourage design discourse at its most human. We believe that the future of South African design won’t be decided only in boardrooms or established institutions, but in these moments of generous exchange between creative practitioners and an engaged, culturally conscious audience.’

All imagery courtesy of Design Week South Africa

Keyes Art Mile, Victoria Yards and 44 Stanley, three of Johannesburg’s most dynamic cultural precincts, will host an immersive programme of exhibitions, talks and pop-ups showcasing the breadth and diversity of African design.

Highlights in the Milpark complex include Africa Textile Talks at The Bioscope and The Library of Things We Forgot to Remember, curated by Tandekile Mkize and presented by Twyg in partnership with The V&A Watershed, alongside an Ivorian jewellery pop-up at Yä-de, innovative lighting conversations at Wat Wat and The Story of Sari for Change installation, which reimagines heritage textiles into one-of-a-kind garments while celebrating the empowerment of women artisans.

In Rosebank, 223 Creative Hub will host a tufting workshop by Fybre Studios, while Keyes Art Mile has partnered with Blaque Inq Contemporaries for an exciting exhibition and artist walkabout, by visual artist Lehlogonolo Masoabi.

Victoria Yards will see a sustainable garden design workshop by Plenty Green Africa, a pop up by streetwear brand FRNDLY SA — with an exciting t-shirt collaboration with Design Week South Africa — and a multi-disciplinary exhibition, Price of Gold, by seven artists and four designers, including Jack Markovitz, Klein Muis and Francesco Mbele. Centred around an imagined future for the city of Johannesburg, the exhibition will also host talks from the artists and designers involved.

Across the road, at Nando’s Central Kitchen, Jozi My Jozi will be revealing their latest creative campaign, Babize Bonke – meaning ‘call everyone’. Featuring extraordinary local champions who are shaping Johannesburg from the ground up, the exhibition will be accompanied by a series of talks.

Around the rest of the city, workshops, studio open days and immersive experiences offer a deeper dive into the city’s design scene, while Soho House will host a curated salon in partnership with Perfect Hideaways. Visitors can also explore a hard-hat tour of a soon-to-open lifestyle development, intimate listening-room experiences, film screenings and Garden Day celebrations, among other surprises.

All imagery courtesy of Design Week South Africa

Meanwhile, in Soweto, Creative20 will launch The Annual Kasiology Festival in collaboration with Jozi My Jozi, marking a township-based celebration of design, creativity and lifestyle that coincides with the upcoming G20 Summit in South Africa.

“Both 44 Stanley and Keyes Art Mile embody the spirit of independent creativity and African innovation, making them natural partners for Design Week South Africa,” says Margot Molyneux, founder of Design Week South Africa. “We are thrilled to present activations that reflect the depth, diversity and energy of the continent’s design community — and to invite the world to see how South Africa’s designers are shaping the future.”

ABOUT THE TEAM :

Design Week South Africa 2025 is curated by South Africans passionate about this country’s design sectors, the creative economy and growing pride and acknowledgement of South African and, more broadly African, design. The core team comprises Margot Molyneux, Zanele Kumalo, Roland Postma and Simone Schultz, while a broader advisory team, including local and international industry leaders, has also been formed, with members announced  later this month. 

More about the core team:

Having spent 10 years building her namesake clothing studio, Margot Molyneux, a manufacturer and retailer of boutique collections of men’s and womenswear, Margot more recently turned her attention to the world of media, specifically focusing on interiors, architecture and decor, fulfilling the role of Managing Editor of House and Leisure publication and General Manager at independent publisher LOOKBOOK Studio. 2024 brought the launch of, Design Week South Africa, a seemingly natural career transition as she combined her love of design and storytelling with her enthusiasm for the local creative industry and its growth and development.

Since joining the biggest Sunday newspaper and working in various roles at the top lifestyle publications in the country, Zanele Kumalo continues to partner with premium brands to create and lead communities built around the creative economy – art, culture and design. With a twenty-year career in media, marketing and communications that sees her growing the now six-year-old boutique content studio whatzandidnext, she works as the Johannesburg liaison for Soho House Cities Without Houses, a global members club; the founding director of kumalo | turpin, a newly launched contemporary art space in Johannesburg; and on other projects.

Roland Postma believes that building people-first cities is a necessity, not an idealistic goal. With a first class Honours in Urban and Regional Planning from RMIT in Melbourne, he is currently the Managing Director at Young Urbanists NPC, where he aims to inspire a new generation of thinkers and doers around city design and management. Through co-founding the Active Mobility Forum and the public-private partnership Safe Passage Programme with the SDI Trust, he wants to prove that change is possible by providing solutions to local governments around the areas of housing, urban design and transportation.

Following on from her position as editor-in-chief of Asia’s leading design publication, Design Anthology, Simone Schultz brings an international perspective and understanding of the global creative landscape and its evolving narratives. She has spent a decade working with stakeholders in Asia Pacific, Europe, Africa and beyond at the intersection of design and media, helping designers, architects, thought-leaders and brands communicate their stories across mediums, geographies and contexts. Her involvement in Design Week South Africa marks her renewed focus on her home continent, where she will draw on her global experience to help build a window into and a bridge between Africa and the rest of the world. 

 

Visit Design Week South Africa’s Website here

Follow @designweeksouthafrica on Instagram

The Design Week South Africa brand identity was created by Hoick @hoick. 

Poster illustration by Koos Groenewald @kooooooos.

Press release courtesy of Design Week South Africa

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Film-Maker Nthato Mokgata joins Romance Films and reflects on The Importance of South Africa’s Self-Authored Imagination

Oct 6, 2025 | Interviews, Creatives

Nthato Mokgata has always told stories in motion, and he has a chameleonic ability to tell each one, through each medium, with startling clarity. In his latest incarnation, as a film director stepping into commercial advertising, it is a natural arc to a lifetime spent wholly committed to creative expression. As Spoek Mathambo, a sonic identity carved out of the energetic ferment of the 2010s, Nthato emerged as a figure who rewired the possibilities of Pan African electronic music and captured the restless pulse of South African youth culture, at a time when we were just getting out from under the weight of the post-apartheid hangover and finding new ways to define ourselves.

As Nthato explains, he sees the past few decades of cultural production as an existential responsibility: for South Africans to inscribe their own creative imprints, to reflect themselves not as exports for external validation, but as authors of a shared imagination. It’s an ambitious challenge — one he has consistently risen to and at this juncture, stepping into the realm of commercial advertising will be no exception.

Multidisciplinary in the truest sense of the word — spanning documentary, literature, animation and visual art — Nthato is and remains a restless storyteller, forever seeking the next medium capable of holding his ideas. It’s in this spirit that commercial advertising offers both challenge and possibility: a democratic form of art, in which messaging for rarefied circles is totally obsolete and the resonances of one’s work is intended for millions. In a country as diverse and dazzling as ours, advertising dissolves our sentiments around ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture – holding lofty and noble potentials that reach across language, class and geography. 

Portrait of Nthato Mokgata by Kent Andreasen

‘Scam Called Love’ BTS photographed by Studio LaGrange

In South Africa, our commercial space has long carried the weight of humour, satire and social commentary and in stepping into this arena, Nthato intends to inject his own imagination and aesthetic into that cultural bloodstream. Well, more than he already has; whether through the raw pulse of Future Sounds of Mzansi, the afrofuturist animation of Surf Sangoma, the tender rhythms of his debut novel Ghost in the Drum, or the irreverent sonic experiments he shared as Spoek Mathambo, among his many other works over the decades. 

In our conversation, Nthato points out that his creative beginning is always writing. He locates himself first as a writer, with world-building emerging naturally as a way of translating text into other forms;  and his movement into music, film, animation or visual art has always been a means to finding new containers for his imagination. “Going to study design and animation, as a writer, was to ensure that I have the skills myself,” he explains. “I have always been looking for people who could help me take ideas out of text and into different mediums. It’s not specifically about keeping things visual, but about bringing the concepts more to life, bringing the ideas more to life, bringing the questions more to life.” 

Having already proven his command of long form — from award-winning documentaries to novels and feature films — the turn to commercials is less a stepping stone than a deliberate return to brevity. In short form, Nthato notes the chance to distil big ideas into sharp, memorable moments with immediacy and scale, explaining that, “a big part of my excitement of going into commercials now, is the capacity to work with some of the greatest crews in the world, and often — as opposed to having to wait on those four-year films, or six-year animation cycles, or even a book by myself which was quite an extended process. With commercials, the speed and the scale just feel liberating.” 

Nthato is acutely aware that in South Africa, advertising is no trivial backdrop. I point to the extensive tradition we have of commercials provoking a cultural mood — from the sharp satire of Nando’s campaigns to iconic beer ads and cellphone spots that became shorthand for whole generations. Just this weekend, I found myself reminiscing with a friend over the Vodacom meerkat; how a small, silly character could become a national touchstone and still occupy real estate in my memory is a hilarious thing in hindsight. 

It’s one of the few industries that has built, almost inadvertently, a parallel archive of our cultural life, despite the commercial, economic goals that drive it.“A large chunk of our creative talent goes into commercials,” Nthato points out. “People that in other countries would be making television or films, are pressed into commercials. And so that means that…the lack of humor, the lack of really innovative creativity, the lack of cultural cool, the lack of energy in the commercials from around the world compared to South Africa is really like night and day. I lived in Sweden for ten years, and you wouldn’t believe the difference. A huge aspect of it is that we have a wide range of creatives that maybe in other countries wouldn’t have necessarily gone into commercials, but in Africa – this is their bread and butter.” 

Nthato Mokgata’s Showreel

At the core of Nthato’s reflections is a philosophy of imagination as responsibility. “For me it’s really about creating visual streams and modes where big ideas can live,” he explains. “In South Africa, what we’re pushing for as a generation is the chance to see the things we love and consume from around the world — but to see them integrated and reimagined in a South African context. To imagine more within ourselves. It gets tricky because so much of what we take in comes from outside, but that’s why I believe our generational responsibility is to create a voice for South African existential humanity.”

Nthato shares that he recognises this duty more clearly, that “when you’re 25, you’re in that process of making yourself — stepping outside of your parents’ influence — and then you start to just see our collective imagination exploding. What’s happening in South Africa is really exciting. And now that I’ve just hit 40, to see that spark in people’s eyes and minds — that’s what I mean when I talk about creative responsibility. Because it means they’ll do the same for the next generation: igniting the South African imagination that exists within this context. It’s such a vibrant, crazy world. There are scary tensions, yes, but there’s also so much life and diversity.”

Nthato resists the idea that responsibility must be solemn. His creative instinct continually returns to humour, levity and play as the most honest expressions of culture. Now, represented by award-winning space Romance Films — known for its cinematic, artful approach to commercial storytelling — Nthato has been working out what his own voice in this field might be. As the team at Romance put it, “At Romance, we’ve always believed that the future of compelling commercial work lies in voices that challenge the status quo, and that’s exactly what Nthato brings. His ability to draw from such a rich creative spectrum, from music to film to literature, means he will bring a fresh lens to every brief. And in a landscape that often leans on formulas, his instinct to experiment, to subvert, to reimagine, is exactly what brands need right now. We’re thrilled to be part of the next chapter in his evolution, and excited for what that means for the work.”

“With commercials, I hadn’t really figured out what that voice would be,” Nthato admits, “and I know instinctually what my tastes are, what I relate to, but I had really struggled for a long time to know how I would speak in that field. I’m very close with a lot of commercial directors. I would say in a sense that Terence Neale has been very much a mentor — whether directly or indirectly — in my filmmaking. To learn from him the intersection between youth culture that I’ve always been interested in, reaching aesthetic heights, being brave aesthetically, as well as a levity, a real sense of humor that isn’t on the nose, but can be weird, these are all things I love and consider in my process, and that’s what I’m aiming for.”

This emphasis on humour runs deep, and Nthato points out; humour is intrinsic to the South African psyche and spirit. “Working on our rom-com film ‘A Scam Called Love’ gave me that sense of confidence — how to create things that are emotive,” he reflects. “There’s always space for the humanist approach and more honesty. Humour is also an honest expression. Humour is our great unofficial South African language. We thrive in survival on humour. In all our differences, it’s our single shared language, and it’s a comedy lover’s real playground. I think because there are so many different cultures and languages, humour takes on all these unique gradations.”

In this light, Nthato’s step into commercial directing is a continuation of his broader practice: writing, music, film, animation, literature — all different attempts at the same pursuit, to translate imagination into forms that can be shared. Commercials offer Nthato a new immediacy, and our commercial space will undoubtedly be a more generative space for it. As Nthato simply says, “it excites me to be able to make memorable pieces, to make some really exciting, classic pieces.”

Written by Holly Beaton

For more news, visit the Connect Everything Collective homepage www.ceconline.co.za

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Lusanda Releases her new single, ‘Progress’

Oct 3, 2025 | New Release, Music

Lusanda’s new single “Progress” describes the South African singer-songwriter’s process of becoming in a manner that is signature to her – with emotional precision and disarming vulnerability. As was the case with her fan favourite debut single “When You’re Around”, meandering on social media is how she came across one of the song’s producers. Lusanda’s string of now infamous TikTok covers showcasing her knack for reinterpreting pop, R&B and rap classics piqued the interest of GRAMMY-nominated London-based producer Sunny Kale (J Balvin, Stormzy, Masego, J Hus).

One particular beat he sent her via Instagram just so happened to boast this roster of heavy-hitting collaborators: Charlotte Day Wilson, Bad Bad Not Good, and a 2x GRAMMY-winning hyphenate Biako (Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter and Tyler, the Creator’s Chromokopia) on whose hard drive the original song idea had been for 6 years. For months Lusanda was transfixed: “I was listening to that song every day, at least twice a day. But I couldn’t write on it just yet. I was really, really stuck. I just had too many ideas in my head and too many things going on,” she reveals.
 

Confronting her mental block by putting it on paper was what opened the floodgates. “Stumbling, fumbling,” the lines opening the R&B confessional with a backdrop that mimics a foggy dream state, preceding stripped-back verses and a blooming chorus. The track mirrors the emotional arc of the lyrics: uncertain beginnings growing into something whole and bright. “Believe in your ideas, however long they take, ”Biako summarizes its theme, “You never know how they will grow and manifest.”
Equal parts testimony and prophecy, “Progress” stands out in a relatively new but evenly-paced career which, this year, has seen Lusanda named among Apple Music’s Africa Rising Class of 2025. More recently, she delivered a haunting Spotify Singles cover of “Mad World” as part of the global streaming platform’s EQUAL Africa program. These milestones reflect both the industry’s early belief in her and the captivating open-heartedness she brings to each performance. “Writing based off experience is what helped me finally write freely and finish the song. It felt like a release. In 2022 I felt like I had been making a lot of mistakes but I knew there was something bigger coming. I am coming to realize the experiences we have as adults are not what we imagine. As children we really glamorize adulthood and when you start experiencing it, it’s just not always fun, but it’s all for a reason”.
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Listen to ‘Process’ Here

Press release courtesy of Sheila Afari PR

Maya Amolo Releases ‘The Sweetest Time’

Oct 3, 2025 | New Release, Music

From the heady rush of infatuation and the warmth of deep connection, to the comfort of stability, the sting of betrayal, and ultimately, the strength found in healing. Maya Amolo takes a step away from conventional expressions of sweetness and moves to explore all the different dimensions: bittersweetness, sweet revenge, decadence, and more. Each track captures a distinct chapter in this cycle, offering a raw, honest reflection of love in all its beauty and complexity. It is a peek into her mind palace, and a manifestation of all her thoughts, flavours and influences; a soundtrack for anyone who’s ever fallen, been broken, and found their way back to themselves.

About Maya Amolo: 

Maya Amolo is a Kenyan singer-songwriter and producer whose music explores life‘s intricacies through the lens of alternative R&B with afro-pop sensibilities. Maya’s sugary vocals and soft harmonies have amassed her a loyal global listenership and the homegrown support of East Africa‘s creative community.

Her debut project, Leave Me At The Pregame, released in 2020 and took listeners through a journey of self-acceptance and healing. In 2022, Maya released her debut album, Asali, on which she explores themes of infatuation, love, and the non-linearity of the two. 

Maya has established herself as one to watch having been covered by tastemaker platforms including NPR, The Native Mag, Okay Africa, Harmattan Rain and TANGAZA Magazine as well as having been selected as Spotify Africa’s inaugural Fresh Finds artist in March, 2022. In 2023 she partook in Spotify and COLORSxSTUDIOS’ first ever writing camp in Africa, Tantalizers Sessions. She was also named Apple Music’s East Africa Up Next artist in November, 2023.

Connect with Maya Amolo:
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Listen to “The Sweetest Time” Here

Press release courtesy of Sheila Afari PR

Myra Gold releases her debut single, ‘Open Heart Surgery’

Oct 3, 2025 | New Release, Music

Rising from Gqeberha, South Africa, Myra Gold steps into the global spotlight with the release of her debut single, Open Heart Surgery, marking the arrival of an artist intent on shaping the future of Afro Pop. 

Open Heart Surgery is a daring first statement: smooth and hypnotic, wrapped in late-night mood and anchored by a chant-like hook that demands to be remembered. The track is both intimate and commanding, and captures the dangerous thrill of letting someone close, using the metaphor of surgery to explore the tension between passion and vulnerability, strength and surrender.

For Myra Gold, the single is deeply personal. “Open Heart Surgery is about what it really feels like to let someone close enough to see all of you, the good, the scars, and the soft parts. Love can feel exciting but also risky, like you’re handing over your heart and hoping they don’t break it. I wanted the song to capture that mix of passion, fear, and surrender but still with strength at the core and giving the vibes,” she shares.


Beyond the music, Myra Gold’s artistry extends beyond sound into visuals, fashion, and storytelling, where she takes complete ownership of her creative direction. She represents a golden standard: authenticity without apology, boldness without compromise.
The release of Open Heart Surgery is just the beginning of what Myra calls her “Golden Era.” With more singles and a full project on the horizon, she is set to carry South African music onto the global stage while inspiring listeners to embrace vulnerability as a form of strength. As she steps forward, one thing is undeniable: Myra Gold is not chasing a moment, she is the moment. And she’s just getting started.
Make sure to stream or download Open Heart Surgery today and request it from your favourite radio stations.
Connect with Myra Gold:
Facebook: @myragoldofficial
X: @myragold_
Instagram: @myragoldofficial
TikTok: @myragold_official


Listen to ‘Open Heart Surgery’ Here

Press release courtesy of Sheila Afari PR

South Africa Makes History With a Record Five Emmy Nominations

Oct 2, 2025 | News, Community

We’re always a little biased when it comes to applauding South Africa on the world stage, and we love being proven right. This year, with five nominations at the 2025 International Emmy Awards — the most ever achieved by an African country in a single year — the local television industry has shown it can stand proudly alongside the world’s best.

The shortlist, released by the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, places South Africa third overall behind the United Kingdom and Brazil. It’s a milestone that belongs to a growing ecosystem of writers, directors, actors, and crews who are telling stories with a distinctly South African vision, supported by an encouraging network of broadcasters and producers. 

What makes this year especially notable is the range of categories represented, with South African shows recognised in drama, documentary, comedy, sports programming, and children’s entertainment; a spread that reflects the sheer variety of stories being made for screen. 

What makes this year especially notable is the sheer range of categories represented: South African productions were recognised in drama, documentary, comedy, sports programming, and children’s entertainment — a spread that reflects the depth and versatility of local storytelling.

Catch Me a Killer is a gripping true-crime drama adapted from the memoir of Micki Pistorius, South Africa’s first-ever serial-killer profiler. Set in the mid-1990s, the series follows Pistorius — played by British actress Charlotte Hope (Game of Thrones, The Spanish Princess) — as she battles skepticism from a largely male police force while tracking some of the country’s most notorious killers, from the Station Strangler to Stewart “Boetie Boer” Wilken. Hope’s powerful performance has earned her a nomination for Best Performance by an Actress.

Chasing the Sun 2 charts the Springbok’s 2023 Rugby World Cup journey, culminating in their historic fourth title — the most ever won by a single nation, and the pride of our nation. Across five parts, the series shows never-before-seen footage, interviews with more than 30 players and coaches, and match highlights, charting the team’s rise from an opening-game defeat to lifting the trophy in France. Directed and executive produced by Gareth Whittaker, the documentary embodies how sport continues to unite South Africa and inspire global audiences.

Koek, created by Christiaan Olwagen, directed by Johannes Pieter Nel, and produced by Wolflight, delivers a sharp, offbeat crime comedy rooted in Cape Town suburbia. When housewife Christelle Smit uncovers evidence of her husband’s affair with a stripper named Candy Floss, her investigation draws her into a world utterly unlike the neat domestic sphere she knows. 

School Ties, a four-part documentary directed by Richard Finn Gregory and produced by true-crime pioneers IdeaCandy (of Tracking Thabo Bester, Devilsdorp, Rosemary’s Hitlist, Steinheist), confronts the grooming and sexual abuse of learners in some of South Africa’s most prestigious boys’ schools. The series unravels the trauma endured by victims, the culture of silence that enables abuse, and the inadequate responses from institutions and society. Its release has  sparked a national debate on accountability in elite schools — proof of the power of documentary to drive urgent social conversations.

Play Room Live, nominated in the Kids: Factual and Entertainment category, celebrates curiosity and imagination. By centering young voices and creativity, it reminds us that South African television is shaping the media experiences of future generations.

MultiChoice, home to four of the five nominated shows, has pointed to the nominations as proof of the payoff from sustained investment in local talent. For creators, Emmy recognition carries prestige and unlocks opportunities for international distribution, co-productions, and career-defining collaborations. For audiences, it affirms what we’ve long known: South African storytelling deserves a global stage.

In recent years, local productions have gained growing visibility on international streaming platforms, bringing uniquely South African voices and perspectives to new audiences abroad. This year’s record-setting nominations make that trend undeniable.

The winners will be announced in New York on 24 November 2025, but the nominations themselves already mark a victory. Five nominations across five distinct genres show that South Africa has no shortage of stories to tell — stories of justice, triumph, humour, resilience, and imagination. Whatever the final results, South African television has made it clear: our time on the world stage has only just begun.

Written by Holly Beaton

For more news, visit the Connect Everything Collective homepage www.ceconline.co.za

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Kent Andreasen’s Book, ‘Memory Bank’, is a Visceral Photographic Study

Oct 1, 2025 | Creatives, Community

South African photographer Kent Andreasen has never shied away from complexity. With a background in cinematography and a globally recognised portfolio of images that sit somewhere between the intimate and the existential, Andreasen’s work has long explored the subtle terrain of the human condition. Now, with the release of his first book, Memory Bank, published by Witty Books (Italy), that exploration becomes more personal—and more vulnerable.

Set to launch officially at Paris Photo (November 13–16, 2025) with pre-orders opening on September 26, Memory Bank is a 200-page softcover book (24 × 32 cm) that brings together five years of image-making, archival research and constructed scenes into a visceral, if at times elusive, body of work. As its title suggests, the project is a meditation on memory—its failures, its fictions and the often painful terrain it uncovers.

“At the end of the day, each image makes sense to me and is more about figuring things out than making something cohesive,” says Andreasen. “A trail of consciousness that comes at you like a fever dream and hopefully only lets up when you get to the end.”

The book is a visual archive and an emotional map. Themes of death, pain and self-doubt run through its pages like veins, often subtly implied yet sometimes explicit, all the while holding beauty and feeling at the same time. 

Kent reflects that he initially resisted writing about the work— “The idea of writing an outline for this book has caused me stress for a long time. If I had wanted to be a writer, it’s something I would actively be doing and would probably be broke,” he admits. An insightful conversation with South African poet and his long-time friend Matthew Freemantle changed that. 

All imagery courtesy of Kent Andreasen 

“He has a knack for seeing through my facade. I say this because I presented him with the dummy of this book to look over, and he called for a meeting to discuss his ‘findings’. Up until this point, I had shown a few people the work, and most said they enjoyed it but didn’t seem to have really looked at it. And I mean really looked at it.

I was eager to hear what he said because I respect his opinion and knew he wouldn’t hold back. He revealed that the book had a certain darkness and pain that he wasn’t expecting. He was the second person who had said this.

I found myself at a review in Montana a few weeks prior to this interaction, and Jenia Fridyland expressed the same notion—that the book was laced with people in pain.

This got me thinking – maybe that is what this is about: my own internal struggle and my attempt to resolve aspects of my work through memory, my life in South Africa, and these frameworks that I create for myself. Matthew also said he doesn’t normally advise artists to write about their own work but knew that the work was so personal that there may not be someone equipped to pull back the veil.”

All imagery courtesy of Kent Andreasen 

What emerges in Memory Bank is not simply a neatly packaged photo series, but an intimate document of a photographer exploring his own experience and the fragmented nature of memory. 

Born in Cape Town, Andreasen’s work often grapples with the contradictions of contemporary South African life—its beauty and its rawness. Memory Bank is an exciting debut into the world of bookmaking, made even more significant by its deeply personal genesis.

Published by Witty Books and available for preorder now Memory Bank is an opening chapter in what promises to be a compelling series of long-form works from one of South Africa’s most introspective contemporary visual artists.

Preorder Memory Bank here

Preorder Memory Bank special print edition here

Follow Kent Andreasen on Instagram here

 

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