A Platform for Ethnically and Culturally Inspired Music
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3 times in the Global Top 40
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Sabu Jiyana's Matimba Project
After 17 years of recording, performing, and touring the world, Matimba frontman Sabu Jiyana has made it his personal mission to take his audience on a journey through the African continent through a sound he has coined “The Pan-African Sound.”
Jiyana describes it simply as “the true display of what African leadership should look like in the 21st century.”
Sabu started the ensemble in 2017 just after completing his postgraduate studies at the prestigious University of Cape Town. It had become painfully clear through his studies that traditional African elements and sounds were mostly pushed to the background whilst favoring foreign ideas, concepts, and instrumentation took center stage. He wanted to encourage pride in our own, and so using the analogy that when one is in Rome, they do as the Romans do... When one is in Africa, surely it shouldn’t be about chasing foreigners from our shores, but rather about educating them on our ways and our colorful cultures that result in a melting pot of colorful musicality… After all, isn’t that what Pan-Africanism is all about? Matimba has an eclectic sound, influenced by old African practices, modern African practices, old folk songs, and church songs, and also colored with the culture of a very different 21st century Africa and the current affairs and tribulations faced these days in the beloved continent and indeed the world at large. Matimba uses instruments such as the mbira (Zimbabwe), Nyungue nyungue (Mozambique), Akadinda (Uganda), uHadi (South Africa), and the talking drum (West Africa), just to name a few. All this is accompanied by bass guitar, piano, and the western drum kit.
Their brand of musicality accommodates both young and old, with each performance serving as a refresher course of sorts on these long-forgotten instruments and their uses and origins. The band performs as a duet all the way to a 12-piece ensemble.
After 17 years of recording, performing, and touring the world, Matimba frontman Sabu Jiyana has made it his personal mission to take his audience on a journey through the African continent through a sound he has coined “The Pan-African Sound.”
Jiyana describes it simply as “the true display of what African leadership should look like in the 21st century.”
Sabu started the ensemble in 2017 just after completing his postgraduate studies at the prestigious University of Cape Town. It had become painfully clear through his studies that traditional African elements and sounds were mostly pushed to the background whilst favoring foreign ideas, concepts, and instrumentation took center stage. He wanted to encourage pride in our own, and so using the analogy that when one is in Rome, they do as the Romans do... When one is in Africa, surely it shouldn’t be about chasing foreigners from our shores, but rather about educating them on our ways and our colorful cultures that result in a melting pot of colorful musicality… After all, isn’t that what Pan-Africanism is all about? Matimba has an eclectic sound, influenced by old African practices, modern African practices, old folk songs, and church songs, and also colored with the culture of a very different 21st century Africa and the current affairs and tribulations faced these days in the beloved continent and indeed the world at large. Matimba uses instruments such as the mbira (Zimbabwe), Nyungue nyungue (Mozambique), Akadinda (Uganda), uHadi (South Africa), and the talking drum (West Africa), just to name a few. All this is accompanied by bass guitar, piano, and the western drum kit.
Their brand of musicality accommodates both young and old, with each performance serving as a refresher course of sorts on these long-forgotten instruments and their uses and origins. The band performs as a duet all the way to a 12-piece ensemble.
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