I know this is hardly fresh news but for all of you that haven’t heard our own Cape Town based afro jazz outfit: FreshlyGround, won an MTV Europe Award for Best African Act last week.

FreshlyGround were formed in Cape Town in 2002 and have been banging around the local SA scene pretty voraciously since their inception. Unless you have been living in a cave for the past 4 years you would have heard them on the radio and most probably seen them live too.

“The band is made up of Zolani Mahola (lead vocals), Simon Attwell (flute, mbira, harmonica), Kyla Rose Smith (violin, vocals), Petert Cohen (drums), Julio Sigauque (acoustic guitar), Josh Hawks (bass guitar) and Aron Turest Swartz (keyboard, vocals, percussion)†via SAMRO

While FreshlyGround have never gotten much love from us here at the Muso that is much more our fault than theirs. They have a massively wide audience base and (if you catch me in a truthful moment) probably are a precursor of what our music is to become. It encompasses many of our local strengths in funky afro jazz beats and vocals and the band forms a visually impressive display on stage.

So big congrats go out to FreshlyGround for putting a brief spotlight on our Republic’s music scene and we hope it keeps getting better.

Sorry that is all the news about FreshlyGround I have, their site seems to be down/being upgraded so no tracks I’m afraid. You can go there and have an obnoxious little player blare some low quality FG tracks at you if that particularly floats your boat.

Website | Samro article

Update: As always the boys at Splattermail had their own unique take on events. Funny as hell… Yeish!

Read Splattermail FreshlyGround Article