Simphiwe Dana

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Last updated 27 07 11

Simphiwe Dana: 

Simphiwe Dana (born 1980) is a Xhosa pop singer in South Africa. With her unique combination of jazz, pop, and traditional music, she has been hailed as the "new Miriam Makeba". 

In 2005, Simphiwe Dana won the "Best Newcomer" award at the 11th South African Music Awards with her first album "Zandisile". Two years later, she was named the "Best Female Artist", with the song "The One Love Movement on Bantu Biko Street", at the 13th South African Music Awards. Simphiwe Dana is also active in the world music scene in Europe. 

She schooled at the Vela Private School in Mthatha, from which she matriculated in 1997. Her tertiary education pursued her interests in graphic design, and she successfully studied for her National Diploma in IT at the Wits Technikon, Johannesburg. Dana’s music draws strongly on her upbringing in the Transkei, and she sites the powerful singing of her mother as an inspiration for her and her siblings, and ultimately as a key motivator in her resolve to pursue her musical career. 

She has maintained a strong presence, with consistent radio play and live appearances at key national events and Festivals such as Arts Alive, the Cape Town International Jazz Festival and the Standard Bank Joy of Jazz. In September 2005, travelling to perform in Vereeniging, she was involved in a serious road accident. She was hospitalised for a week and needed reconstructive surgery, but fortunately gave birth to a healthy baby boy. In the ensuing period, she took time out to prioritise her maternal role and also for her own healing. 

With two commercially-successful and critically acclaimed albums to her credit, she maintains a busy live performance roster, which increasingly includes international dates. Her third album, Kulture Noir, was released in the summer of 2010.

In South Africa an incredible creative potential exists that ranks among the world's finest. One of that potential's most recent success stories bears the name Simphiwe Dana. This young vocalist with an earthy voice that gets under the skin is one of the absolute shooting stars on the South African music scene. Media in South Africa hails Simphiwe Dana as "the best thing to happen to Afro-Soul music since Miriam Makeba” and entitled her as "South Africas Jazz Diva No#1" . Her debut album "Zandisile" has meanwhile gone platinum. During her first tour this summer 2006 in Europe she was celebrated by the audience with standing ovations wherever she performed. Her tour was probably the most successful tour of an African artist coming for the first time to Europe in decades.

Just having been voted “Newcomer Of The Year” and “Best Jazz Vocalist” in the 2005 South African Music Awards (SAMA’s), Simphiwe is one of the most sought-after performers to emerge from South Africa in many years and her diligence and hard work has finally paid off for her. "Gallo Record Company is proud to announce that jazz diva Simphiwe Dana has extended her tour of Europe after the phenomenal success of exploding onto the World Music Charts Europe at an impressive number 4 with her debut album Zandisile. Additionally Simphiwe has been featured on the German Jazz Charts Top 30 an incredible feat, as the European Stores didn’t originally file her under jazz." Please find more information about the sold out concerts during Simphiwe debut tour and also the schedule of the forthcoming tours below.

Simphiwe Dana's Bio: 

Dana’s debut album, Zandisile, was officially launched when Dana shared the stage with Afropop star Angelique Kidjo during her performance at the Johannesburg Music Hall on 23 July 2004. It may sound cliché, because it has been said of so many female vocalists that come on to the scene these days, that they sound so much like the young Miriam Makebas and Dorothy Masukus, but Dana’s voice does transport you to that golden era in South Africa’s history.

It is credit to her immense schooling in different musical forms, not to mention her latent talent that Dana sings as if she has known a lot of pain and suffering in her life. Musically schooled in a church choir from her native East Cape, the distinct influence of gospel music can be heard on her first CD. As the apartheid era came to a close Simphiwe Dana started off by studying fashion design. But after moving to Johannesburg, the hub of the South African music industry, it was her appearances at open-mike sessions that immediately caught the attention of established musicians and producers. They eventually resulted in the recordings for her first album.

Simphiwe’s album Zandisile incorporates contemporary jazz with traditional African sounds and progressive R&B, world music and pop. Her maturity shines way beyond her tender 26 years and her music is lodged firmly in her traditional African roots. Since she emerged onto the music scene in South Africa, this unassuming star has far surpassed her counterparts and pushed her way through to being one of the best performers around.

At the South African Music Awards, South Africa's equivalent to the Grammy, she won in the categories “Best Newcomer” and “Best Jazz Vocal Album” for 2005, supplemented by nominations as “Best Female Composer” and “Best Female Artist”. All of the songs were written by Simphiwe Dana, some of them jointly with such major names in the South African music biz as producer Thapelo Khomo, ex-keyboarder in the cult formations Stimela and Bayete, or Carlo Mombelli, numbered among the country's top bass players.

Other prominent artists to be found on “Zandisile” include Victor Masondo on bass, formerly producer for Miriam Makeba, and drummer Isaac Mtshali, whose virtuosity was heard on Paul Simon's “Graceland”. When asked about direct influences, Simphiwe Dana names the jazz legends Lena Horne and Sarah Vaughan, South African veteran vocalists like Dorothy Masuka, but also lesser greats from the realms of reggae, jive and traditional Xhosa music.

She defines her own style as Modern African Soul. Her lyrics speak mainly of the significance of tradition, yet also of the struggle for self-confidence and freedom, especially freedom for women. With the international release of “Zandisile” and a scheduled European tour this year, the vocalist from Johannesburg is now going about proving beyond her heartland what the internet magazine from MWEB, South Africa's biggest online provider, wrote about her: “The best thing to happen to Afro-Soul music since Miriam Makeba.”