South Africa’s Serati tours East Africa

Serati officially begun her tour on Sunday in Dar es Salaam by performing at Hamu restaurant. For her, the best experience so far has been receiving positive feedback about her songs from different audiences.

“I am signed to Panamusiq which is a management company based in Dar es Salaam,” she said. “This was why we decided to start at the capital. I will be headed to Zanzibar in a few weeks. The plan is to do Kenya then Uganda and other East African cities. I am excited to be doing this tour right now and thankful to my management for making it possible.”

Produced in Tanzania, Rapture features four songs written by herself over the course of several years and explores the themes of forbidden love, loss, disappointment and finding oneself. She said that the language barrier was her biggest challenge during the production of the EP as she does not speak Swahili, Tanzania’s national language.

On the plus side, recording the album in Tanzania gave her a chance "to work with producers who had a completely different background from what I am used to,” she said. “I got to explore with East African sounds, which is a big part of why I want to begin my tour in East Africa before taking my music to the world.”

Serati said that Rapture is more than just her debut album. It's about her figuring her sound and becoming comfortable within it. “I didn’t go out of my way to incorporate any South African beats per se, but South African music is within me, so naturally I draw from it. I definitely feel like my next EP will be even closer to who I am, or perhaps who I am now.”

Rapture is available on Deezer, Google Play, iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and Boomplay.