Program

BINGHI, Rwanda, producer, singer, DJ:
Sheja Cheryl also known as Binghi is a Rwandan singer/songwriter, actress, spoken word artist, music producer and dj since 2017. She also experiments with audio visual installation and exhibitions. Born on the 7th of may 1995, she currently resides in Kigali, Rwanda.
Starting 2011 as a Neo soul singer, she has been doing live shows in different places and spaces in Kigali also collaborating with different bands and musicians based in Kigali/Rwanda, as well as touring artists and performers.

From 2018, she is a self-taught music producer, specifically exploring experimental music/electronic/deepTechno, Spiritual drum patterns and is also a dj.

She is currently experimenting with visual art, and has directed 3 audio visuals, one which she exhibited in her very first solo art exhibition in Novembre numerique.
In 2021, the movie in which she is the lead actress, Neptune frost, debuted in festival de cannes in France and continued its journey in different film festivals such as the toronto film festival, New york film festival and in 2022, Sundance film festival and miami film festival to name a few. She then won an award for the fiff in Namur for prix d’agnes for the movie Neptune frost.
She has been invited to perform for the Biennale de Dakar for the 23rd of may 2022 and in which she also played with the Nyege Nyege collective. Later on in June, she was invited to play during la fete de la musique in Paris.

She continues to produce music and audio visuals and is a member of disco titties. She is currently working on the fragma project which is an audio visual experience all produced in Rwanda.

Links:
https://youtu.be/fdwGJG28FkQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7cvZq6Unt8
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe2Pc0BouPSKXRJ9_zOYZdA
https://www.instagram.com/herartiistry

ASTAN KA, Germany, artistic performer, singer, dancer, actress, model, event curator:
Born in France and travelling regularly to Mali since the age of 3, Astan grew up surrounded by black and white, which allowed her to never encounter identity problems and leads her to consider herself today as a 'child of reconciliation'. She combines different musical genres, from jazz to rock to afro-techno to hip-hop, to illustrate her mostly experimental universe.
She is also the lead singer of the band Asphalt Djelis, which mixes ancient and futuristic sounds. Her songs are about life, love, friendship, protest and intellectual rebellion, but also about growing up as a mixed-race woman and the importance of acquiring the right knowledge, as there is a lot that school doesn't teach us. Although much of her work is about glorifying the black woman, she still preaches a great message of universality. She started dancing at the age of 6 with ballet and then started modern jazz at the age of 11.
Today, she expresses herself through all the dance influences she has encountered and tries to dance more 'from the inside than the outside'. She has appeared as an actress in music videos and commercials, mainly in Germany and France, and got a role in a musical in Berlin in 2019. In February 2021 she played a role on a new Amazon TV-show produced by Warner Bros Germany.
She has been involved in many creative collaborations such as with Puma, Sevdaliza, the Hoodoo Musical in Berlin.
Astan also curates events at the cultural centre Oyoun-Neu Denken in Berlin-Neukölln, which promotes migrant, queer, women and decolonising ideas. She is also a co-founder of Culture Supply and a member of Out Out Time Embassy, a multicultural group of curators who generate conversation and curiosity about art and culture in Berlin.

Links:
https://www.youtube.com/@Tisskeen
https://www.instagram.com/tisskeen
https://www.facebook.com/AstanMeyerKa
Show in Berlin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vny_hPjcgWU&t=1858s
Visual Arts Projects: https://youtu.be/He3HGD_zcJk, https://youtu.be/8WIYB9gAVUU, https://youtu.be/p0jN_Lq5yW4, https://youtu.be/vcm5xz5WEcM
https://open.spotify.com/artist/5RzMBr6J094SQNEw8jMIKn?si=jj_2HXB-QR-vezptgpdbqA

EXOCÉ, Germany, artistic performer, dancer, visual artist, model
Exocé is a multidisciplinary Afrocentric Artist. He mostly performs alone in improvisation and creation of stories or in the transmission of a language for other creators. His dance style is experimental storytelling.
He considers himself as an Afropean because he was born in 1995 in Paris of Congolese parents, so he has a double culture.
Marked by a story between two worlds, Exocé grows up in a very humble environment and understands very early on that through Art he can break all barriers and reach the sensitivity of the people around him. Thanks to his years of experience, Exocé confirms himself as a dancer (Krump / Hip-hop) with Afro/Contemporary influences and starts to develop his own body language. His dance is mostly based on improvisation, expressing the true self in the present moment. He is also a visual artist and has started a series of analog collages that he prints on fabric to create his first fashion concept called KASAPIO.
He has collaborated with many artists like Patrice, Swift Guad, Katerinha, Sevdaliza, Stéphane Ashpool or Kelvyn Colt . His artistic universe is Afrocentric, a return to the African roots linking ancestrality and modernity within the diaspora.

Links:
https://www.instagram.com/exoceexiste/
https://vimeo.com/417619659
https://youtu.be/rknSRXfWZz0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFziBrqxS6Q&t=18s

MENZI, South Africa, Producer
Menzi is one of the early pioneers of the Gqom scene. Hailing from the Umlazi township of Durban in South Africa, he rose to prominence as a member of the Infamous Boiz, whose influence can be heard in clubs across the world. As a producer, he has supplied beats for some of South Africa’s biggest acts, such as Moonchild Sanelly, Mahotella Queens, Zolani Mahola and Zakes Bantwini. By diverging from the genre's usual track structure and arrangements, Menzi has crafted a unique sound exploring Gqom textures, as shown on his EP Impazamo, recently released by Nyege Nyege’s Hakuna Kulala.

Links:

https://www.instagram.com/menzi_official
https://twitter.com/menziofficial
https://hakunakulala.bandcamp.com/album/impazamo
https://scratchadva.bandcamp.com/track/storm-vz-grave
https://scratchadva.bandcamp.com/track/whoo-hoo-menzi-remix
https://open.spotify.com/artist/0us3Osmp1y1uKHBsGFlNuw?si=_fuRnnWZTPKVmc8HloDbYw

DEBMASTER, France/Germany, Producer
French, yet a 'Berliner' for the past 12 years, Julien Deblois aka Debmaster, is the eclectic producer behind many of the exciting releases on Hakuna Kulala.

While Debmaster had a lot of fun playing live with his noisy friends in Berlin (Jason Forrest, Patric Catani, Chris Imler & others 'crazy people'). His 2015 encounter with the overactive Nyege Nyege scene was the perfect outlet when they invited him to send 'some beats' for artists who were recording weekly in a DIY recording studio in Kampala. Mc Yallah and him started to work together around 2018 for the first EP Ndi Mukazi, quickly followed by Kubali.

He now produces music every day, mainly for Hakuna Kulala and Mc Yallah. He is also behind releases of Ecko Bazz (Mmaso), Biga yut (Walah), Will'stone (Mbv5) and more to come...

Links:
https://www.debmaster.hotglue.me
https://debmaster.bandcamp.com
https://soundcloud.com/debmaster
https://www.instagram.com/debmaster_the_real_one
https://www.youtube.com/debmaster
https://open.spotify.com/artist/44DI5jAUWYRStA0amIvFRl?si=w-5yYm_bRE6m8gg9DQEUxQ