Ndibale: 20 Cape Town creatives make music a tool for social change

The 20 members are producers, rappers, singers, poets, writers, photographers, videographers and event curators, and the music they have made moves fluidly across genres, including amapiano, Afro house, deep house, hip-hop and R&B. Like the freedom songs before them, it was made collectively rather than written by any one person. The group spent five months in conversation, talking each theme through before writing a single bar, then wrote from their own lives rather than from a brief. The songs are gritty and honest, treating these issues as pressures bearing down on people, not failings within them.

The name means "count me in", and it is an invitation with a direction. Showing up, listening and caring are where you start, not where you stop, and the collective asks people to come to the shows and stay in it as the work grows. Attention is the first step towards action, not a substitute for it.

Ndibale is part of Voices for Change, a social-impact music initiative led by the Music In Africa Foundation (MIAF) in partnership with Bridges for Music Academy. It forms part of the National Employment Facility for Creative Industries in South Africa (NEFCISA), a broader programme implemented by MIAF through the Social Employment Fund. NEFCISA is creating paid work, training and practical industry experience for more than 1,000 emerging creatives across South Africa, while harnessing the creative industries to generate work for the common good and strengthen communities. Bridges for Music serves as the host and production partner for the Cape Town collective, mentoring its participants as they develop original music and content addressing urgent social issues.

“We are excited for people to hear what this collective has created. Our thanks go to Bridges for Music for guiding the process, and especially to the creatives who brought such honesty, courage and creativity to the work. Ndibale deserves to be heard, shared and supported—not only for the music, but for the important conversations it is opening in our communities,” says Eddie Hatitye, Executive Director of MIAF.

"What matters to me is what it meant to come into this," says Onthatile Pooe, the collective's Campaigns & Events Lead. "We wanted to prove that music can be a tool for social development, and over our time here I have watched people's attitudes and perceptions genuinely shift. Not every lesson comes in a classroom, and some of the most important conversations I have had happened right here."

Ndibale reaches beyond the EP. Alongside the music, the collective is exploring digital storytelling and community activations to keep the conversation going off the stage. Where it goes from here is still taking shape, and that is by design: the group is still figuring out what it wants to become.