10 music festivals not to miss in Africa

The recent cancellation of the 2016 editions of three giants of African music festivals - the Festival in the Desert in Timbuktu (due to the presence of armed groups in the Sahel), Sauti za Busara in Zanzibar (due to lack of funding) and HIFA in Harare (due to a change in strategy) - is evidence of the challenges of sustainability for some of these platforms (these festivals have therefore been excluded from this list). Still, new festivals and cultural events with innovative formats and multi-genre line-ups are constantly sprouting all over the continent, feeding the African festival scene.

From this long and ever-changing list, I've considered established festivals across all regions of Africa - offering a diversity of acts and genres, and a unique setting offering audiences a cultural experience that goes beyond the musical performances - to come up with this list of 10 recommended music festivals not to be missed in Africa.

Festival sur le Niger - Segou, Mali (early February)

With the Festival in the Desert on standby since 2012 due to the unstable security situation in northern Mali, the Festival on the Niger has become the country’s most visible music festival internationally. Taking place since 2005 during the first week of February in the city of Ségou, the festival covers all genres of Malian music, including artists like the ngoni maestro Bassekou Kouyate, takamba group Super Onze de Gao, Tuareg rock band Amanar de Kidal, young rappers like Iba One, and superstars like Salif Keita and Fatoumata Diawara. The programme includes a number of theatre crews that perform alongside parades of giant puppets and masked dancers on stilts from the Dogon country. In 2015 the festival hosted the second Caravan for Peace, an itinerant showcase of West African artists promoting cultural diversity, tolerance and social cohesion among the peoples of the Sahel.

National Arts Festival - Grahamstown, South Africa (June – July)

South Africa’s National Arts Festival has a vast programme of hundreds of events and performances in more than 50 venues and runs for 11 days between late June and early July. Probably the longest-standing arts festival in the continent, it has been running since 1974 and in the past few years has recorded an attendance of over 200 000 people. Committees in various disciplines meticulously curate the artistic content of the festival. Even though it has a strong emphasis on theatre and dance, its jazz section is one of the pillars of its programme. The South African jazz scene is one of the most robust in the continent, and even though other large-scale platforms like the Cape Town International Jazz Festival and Joy of Jazz in Johannesburg provide an impressive line-up full of local and international superstars, the National Arts Festival gives music fans the opportunity to have a more intimate experience and a closer look at the variety of collaborations, trends, experiments and new directions taking place on the local jazz scene.

Bushfire - Malkerns Valley, Swaziland (late May - early June)

Held in the ‘fantasy-scape’ created at House on Fire – a farm that has become Swaziland’s leading performance arts venue – MTN Bushfire received over 25 000 attendees over three days during its ninth edition in 2015. Over 200 local artists were part of the festival’s characteristic diverse programme, which has also showcased international artists like the South African vocal ensemble Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Colombian ‘electro-cumbia’ outfit Bomba Estereo and the Imperial Tiger Orchestra from Switzerland, to name a few. Bushfire also has a rich family-friendly line-up of art installations, film, theatre, dance and music workshops taking place in indoors and outdoors stages and spaces, and it donates festival and merchandise profits to Swazi charities. Bushfire is the spearhead of the Firefest Route, a festival circuit and partnership in Southern Africa that also includes Azgo Festival in Maputo, Mozambique, Sakifo in Reunion and the Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA) in Zimbabwe.

Fes Festival of World Sacred Music - Fez, Morocco (late May)

For over two decades, the ancient city of Fez has been the home of the World Sacred Music Festival. The former capital of Morocco, nowadays a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was for centuries an intellectual and political centre in the region, as well as an essential part of the Saharan gold trade route. The 14th century Bab al Makina fortress is one of the main venues of the festival, where oud players, Berber singers, Balinese gamelan ensembles, Kurdish music orchestras, dancing dervishes and Sufi poets take centre stage. According to its organisers, the festival is dedicated “to the traditions of knowledge, art and spirituality in the city”, but its programme also includes names that are familiar to Western audiences, such as Tiken Jah Fakoly, flamenco singer Diego el Cigala and Oumou Sangare, to name a few. Festival passes that secure seats at all events can cost over 300 dollars, but free concerts are offered at the Boujloud Square.

Oppikoppi - Northam, South Africa (second week of August)

Oppikoppi was born in 1994 and for the past 20 years has been growing to become not only the most popular rock festival in South Africa, but also a yearly event of pilgrimage for a faithful crowd of approximately 20 000 rock fans. During its early years Oppikoppi was a small Afrikaans music festival and soon evolved together with the national rock movement during the late 1990s. These days DJs, jazz and traditional artists are also included in the line-up, but the festival mainly focuses on showcasing local rock bands during a three-day party in the dusty, thorny grounds of a farm in the northern province of Limpopo. The relatively rough conditions of the location itself provide the background for the festival’s unique atmosphere, where most attendees camp in small tents and many participate in events that have become annual traditions, like the couch competition (in which groups of friends decorate a couch) and the ‘1000 Naked Dash’ race.

Amani Festival - Goma, DR Congo (mid-February)

The first edition of the Amani Festival in Goma, eastern Congo, in 2014, welcomed approximately 25 000 people, and a similar figure is expected to come to the festival’s third edition in February 2016. For two decades, the region has been heavily affected by violent conflict, but the city of Goma is also becoming a fertile ground for the development of urban arts and cultural activism, led by organisations such as Yole!Africa (creators of the Salaam Kivu International Film Festival - SKIFF) and the Foyer Culturel de Goma, which organises Amani Festival. Amani (Swahili for ‘peace’) seeks to promote peace and integration through a programme that is rich in traditional music and dance from the region of the Great Lakes, as well as local and international stars (Congolese rapper Lexxus Legal and Malian guitarist Habib Koité, for example) and a number of breakdance crews, which often attract thousands of young people to their performances and competitions.

Africa Nouveau - Nairobi, Kenya (early September)

Africa Nouveau is a new addition to the calendar of African music and arts festivals. Its first edition took place in Nairobi on 5 and 6 September 2015, replacing the Blankets and Wine festival, whose team has showcased emerging African artists over six years and 56 editions. Building on this experience, they curated a programme that included collectives engaged in progressive approaches to fashion, food, digital arts, visual installations and, of course, music. The line-up included some of the artists that for the past few years have been shaping the African electronica and dance movement, like South African collective Fantasma, led by Spoek Mathambo, Central African house producer Boddhi Satva; Angolan kuduro pioneer DJ Satellite; Ghanaian singer Jojo Abot and Kenyan outfit Just A Band.

Felabration – Lagos, Nigeria (second week of October)

Home to almost one fifth of the population of sub-Saharan Africa and one of the most active music industries in the continent, Nigeria offers plenty of music festivals and events that cater for a wide range of music tastes, from alternative (Afropolitan Vibes) to jazz (Lagos International Jazz Festival), classical (MUSON Music Festival) and of course Afrobeat. Felabration is the most popular and one of the most consistent music festivals in Nigeria. During a full week, it celebrates the legacy of Nigeria’s foremost musical icon and political activist, Afrobeat creator Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Felabration has been organised by Fela Kuti’s family since 1998 at the New Africa Shrine, a music temple in Lagos’s cultural scene, and other satellite venues in Lagos. Its programme includes over 100 local and international artists, as well as panel discussions and exhibitions. Felabration, which inspires similar events in other cities such as Johannesburg, Paris and New York, also commemorates Fela Kuti’s birthday on 15 October. Thousands attend the week-long festivities, in which most concerts are free of charge.

Sakifo - Saint-Pierre, Reunion (first week of June)

During three days in early June, Sakifo Musik Festival gathers more than 20 000 festival-goers in the beach of the Ravine Blanche in Saint-Pierre, Reunion Island, for one of the best-known music events in the Indian Ocean. The 12th edition of the festival was celebrated in 2015 with an eclectic programme of more than 50 artists performing on nine different stages. In the past it has been headlined by major international names like Manu Chao and Stromae. West African artists like Salif Keita and Tamikrest have also been present, as well as Indian Ocean icons such as the local diva Christine Salem and Mauritian legend Menwar. According to festival director Jérôme Galabert, the 13th edition of Sakifo in 2016 will have a special focus on the music of Cape Verde, as the festival seeks to strengthen ties between artists and genres from other parts of the continent.

Bayimba - Kampala, Uganda (third week of September)

In September 2015 the Bayimba International Festival of the Arts celebrated its eighth edition at the National Theatre in Kampala, Uganda. The extensive line-up of more than 100 acts included theatre, comedy, dance, fashion shows, film, arts and photography exhibitions and music. Ugandan reggae icon Madoxx Ssemanda Sematimba opened the festival, which also showcased a number of East African artists and DJs like the Santuri Safari collective, as well as acts from beyond the region such as Ivorian balafon master Aly Keita and Kareyce Fotso from Cameroon. The festival is the annual culmination of a series of regional events organised by the Bayimba crew in a number of towns across Uganda. The Bayimba Foundation is also responsible for the creation of national and East African cultural networking platforms like Culture Unlimited and DOADOA.