South African singer-songwriter Serati releases her single ‘Don’t Let the Sun.’
Serati is an afro folk/soul singer-songwriter, poet, stage performer, cultural activist, and model from Johannesburg. Her sound is always evolving in a mix of her influences and interests; storytelling acoustic guitar-based folk music, to the diverse musical styles found in the African continent. As a writer and poet, Serati’s lyrical content strongly invites her audience to deeply listen to the themes she explores, predominantly love, self-love and the human condition. Having lived in three continents (the US, UK and Africa) and constant travel, she continues to draw inspiration.
Serati is a founding member of transnational, all-woman, political art, music collective Basadi Ba Mintsu; Tswana and Shangana for ‘Roots Women’. The members use the metaphor of the elements and cycles of nature as a symbol of female fertility and creation. They blend their diverse musical and cultural origins with their shared African ancestry. Basadi Ba Mintsu seeks to merge their diverse cultural, artistic and linguistic backgrounds through poetry, music, and dance, to pay homage to their Black African and Afro-Diasporic women who have come before them.
In March 2021, Serati joined the feminist collective, Makwayela Para Todes, directed by Mozambican singer and cultural activist, Lenna Bahule. This was presented as an online performance at Centro-cultural Franco Mocambicano. The word “Makwayela” came from the word ‘choir’, aptly named for the group’s music/dance genre of multiple voices performed. In response to this genre mostly sung by men, Makwayela started in the 80s and is used to express social, civic and political issues. The collective’s interpretation of this style is to unite voices to speak about our place as inhabitants of the planet, their bodies as women, the feminine place, free transit as a right, geographically and gender identification wise.
Serati dedicates this song to her late grandmother, “The spirit of my grandmother lives in it, the passing of whom inspired the message of this song which is: do not hold onto your anger towards someone, that very person may be your help in the last hour.”
Listen to Serati ft. 251Afrika ‘Don’t Let the Sun’ on:
