Guitarist and songwriter Sibusile Xaba creates music inspired by the musical legacy of KwaZulu-Natal.  A lynchpin in South Africa’s new generation of jazz musicians Xaba has all the makings of an acoustic guitar master.

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, taking only the fundamentals from mentors such as Madala Kunene and Dr. Philip Tabane and imbuing these with a mythology and improvisational intensity all of his own.

His recent debut double album project paints a vivid sonic picture filled with mystical and otherworldly musical landscapes, beautiful melodies with a real focus on African heritage.

We loved the album so much that we asked Xaba to compile a Spotify playlist of 10 songs that represent the various influences upon his music. He duly obliged and you can tuck into the playlist below.

You can catch him live tomorrow night at Archspace or on Thursday evening at Love Vinyl!