This month will see a number of festivals and conferences take place in Cape Town.
This will include the Breathe Sunshine African Music Confe-rence, now in its second year. In a similar vein to Moshito, the conference aims to bring together a wide array of industry players, local and international, with the idea of building the South African music industry.
This year participants will include a sizeable group from germany. They are Volker May, the vice-president of the International Music Manager Forum in Europe, as well as Detlef Schwarte, who is the co-founder of the Reeperbahn Festival held in Hamburg.
The conference is organised by Black Mango who in turn will host a South African panel and live showcase at Reeperbahn at the end of the year.
One of the biggest reggae/ ragga artists in the world, Gentleman, will perform at the festival in Langa.
Breathe Sunshine takes place on February 14 and 15 at the Cape Town City Hall. It will end with a concert called Unity Jam that will take place in Langa on February 16. On the line-up are South African greats Oskido, Jeremy Loops, iFani and Trenton and the Free Radicals as well as Germany’s Gentleman.
The aim of the Langa concert, say Black Mango, is to give back in the way of “empowerment, inspiration and interactive learning”.
A highlight of the festival will be Breathe Sunshine Connect, the important and growing digital aspect of the music industry. This component will be headed by African Dope Records founder, Roach Roth.
Other panel discussions will include The Future of Radio in Africa and The Future of Rock Music in South Africa.
There are plenty of workshops for people to learn from and they fall under the Empower Your Art Workshops component. They will deal with issues such as Under-standing Intellectual Property Rights, Principles of Artist Management and Working with City Councils, among other issues.
There will also be the Bridges for Music Electronic Sessions, which will offer a DJ master class and produce on various of the digital programmes.
The daily conference takes place from noon to 9pm. There are various passes ranging from two- day passes to general tickets to day passes. Tickets are available at breathesunshineconference.com.
“This conference aims to unite the rich diversity of talents from across the continent, in search of a greater future for all,” said Black Mango.