MTN Bushfire’s music collaboration project, CollaboNation, is back for a 3rd edition of “Uniting Africa through Music” with this year’s artists, Madala Kunene and Sibusile Xaba from South Africa, and Eswatini’s Tlale Makhene.
A dynamic expression of the arts development pillar under MTN Bushfire’s ‘Bring Your Fire’ call to action for positive social and environmental change, CollaboNation is an annual arts development project supported by MTN and produced by Bushfire Records.
Since inception, CollaboNation has connected and united the continent through a series of unique music collaborations, each one supporting the weaving together of Africa’s rich and diverse musical genres and facilitating linkages between cultural industries and networks.
Every year, CollaboNation is complemented by a creative online content journey that invites audiences to witness the artists coming together for the first time to use their voices and share talents in creating magic in the studio.
Fans of African music are invited to follow the unfiltered and uplifting behind-the-scenes CollaboNation journey and engage with the compelling stories, creative process and powerful messaging behind the song created by Madala Kunene, Sibusile Xaba and Tlale Makhene. These exclusive intimate in-studio snippets and short documentaries will be shared across CollaboNation’s social media pages on Instagram and Facebook, as well as MTN Bushfire’s YouTube page.
The song created by Madala Kunene, Sibusile Xaba and Tlale Makhene will be debuted on the MTN Bushfire stage to the festival’s multicultural audience of over 23,000 from 30 May—1 June, 2025. The song will be released after their performance on all major digital streaming platforms.
GET TO KNOW OUR 2025 COLLABONATION ARTISTS
Known as the “King of Zulu Guitar”, Doctor Madala Kunene has an honorary Doctorate in Music by the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, for his lifelong and ongoing contribution to the development of indigenous music and to the music of Africa and that of the world. Born in 1947 in Mkhumbane (Cato Manor), a vibrant mixed community just outside of inner Durban, Kunene reflects his environment, and his music acts as an urban war cry. “Music is the best medium to record and tell history. As African people, the way we know and understand our past is very influenced by music,” Kunene says.
Charismatic South African guitar savant and cultural activist, Sibusile Xaba, reframes Maskandi and the Avant Garde into his own humanist manifesto, and a focus on healing the soul and body by living as one with Mother Earth. With a vocal style that is part dreamscaping and part ancestral invocation, Xaba divines as opposed to plainly singing. Combined with a guitar style that is rooted in expressive picking, Xaba’s music shatters the confines of genre, imbuing his music with a mythology and improvisational intensity all of his own.
Tlale Makhene started drumming at a young age in Eswatini, inspired by the rhythms of his traditional healer grandmother. He has released two albums: “Ascension of the Enlightened,” which won the MTN SAMA Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album in 2005, and “Swazi Gold”, reflecting his musical roots and influences. Tlale has performed on stages worldwide, and collaborated with several international artists, performing with the Copenhagen Rhythmic Conservatory Big Band, as well as working with notable artists like Johnny Clegg, Miriam Makeba, and Hugh Masekela.
To follow this amazing collaborative journey with in-studio vids, artist reels, and other audio and visual releases leading up to MTN Bushfire 2025, simply follow “CollaboNation” on Facebook, Instagram, and @CollaboNation_ on Twitter as well as subscribing to the CollaboNation YouTube channel.
