SA: Pilani Bubu to headline inaugural Folklore Festival

The Folklore Festival will celebrate South African Heritage Day as well as African culture and customs with a diverse pan-African creative offering from across the continent. The project is sponsored by the South African Music Performance Rights Association through its Development Fund. 

Bubu will perform alongside her Folklore Ensemble. They will be joined by Kenyan traditional instrumentalist Papillion, Lesotho Afro-soul songstress Leomile, whose music muses on issues of identity, love and womanhood, and Ghanaian Frafra neo-griot and kologo musician Stevo Atambire.

The festival will also feature the NSA’s highly anticipated African Reflections musical featuring the NSA choir led by Xolani Noveld. 

“Folklore is the expressive body of culture shared and preserved by a particular group of people,” Bubu said. “It is inclusive of the traditional beliefs, customs and stories of a community, passed through the generations by word of mouth, in the form of tales, sayings, dances, proverbs, jokes and music captured through various art forms.”

In the past 10 years, Bubu has graced the stages of festivals and music venues in the US, UK, Nigeria, Ghana, Mozambique, Kenya, France and Romania.

The Folklore Festival is open to attendees of all ages. It will include Ethnikids, an online bookstore specialising in children’s books with characters of colour and various South African languages, and Toys With Roots, a platform for toys celebrating African children.

More performers are expected to be announced in August.