The MTN Bushfire Festival is turning up the heat for its 18th edition with the first drop of its artist lineup, revealed during the official launch party at House on Fire. This sizzling selection brings together a bold mix of genres and global sounds—featuring everything from local flavor to legendary names like Boom Shaka, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and 340ml. Get ready to bring your fire, from Friday May 30th to Sunday 1st of June 2025.
Here are some of the artists you can look forward to:
340ML (MOZ)
340ml is a Mozambican band that emerged in 2000, celebrated for its bold and distinctive sound – a vibrant fusion of Reggae, Dub, Jazz, Afrobeat, and an eclectic mix of global influences. Their name, derived from the size of a common beverage can in Southern Africa, symbolizes both their cultural roots and their unfiltered authenticity.
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ABAO (TWN)
ABAO is a Taiwanese singer of Paiwan indigenous descent, and one of Taiwan’s biggest stars, blending Soul, R&B, Hip Hop and Electronic with traditional Paiwan Folk Music. In 2015, she founded the organisation Nanquaq to preserve and promote traditional indigenous music from across Taiwan.
Performance supported by the Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China (Taiwan)
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Aymos (SA)
Aymos is a renowned and multiple award-winning singer and composer from South Africa. His musical career flourished, highlighted by partnerships with well-known artists like DJ Maphorisa and Kabza De Small. Aymos’s music has been very popular and well-received both domestically and abroad, mostly in the Amapiano and Afropop genres.
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Boom Shaka (SA)
Pioneers of a new musical era in post-apartheid South Africa, iconic music legends Boom Shaka revolutionized the Kwaito genre, and continue to inspire and influence new generations with their trailblazing rhythms and powerful lyrics.
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Candeleros (ESP/COL/VEN)
Candeleros is a Hispano-South American sextet based in Madrid. Their musical proposal dives deep into Caribbean roots, with a special focus on Afro-Venezuelan and Afro-Colombian rhythms, shaping a psychedelic ritual guided by the trance of percussion, drum machines, delays, guitar melodies, and synthesizers.
Performance supported by the Embassy of Spain in Mozambique and Eswatini
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Crimson House (SA)
Crimson House is a dynamic Afro-Gypsy band hailing from Cape Town, South Africa. Renowned for their infectious energy, electrifying live performances and powerful lyrics, their music is a celebration of life, love, and the human spirit, drawing audiences into their vibrant world with every note.
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Feli Nandi (ZWE)
Feli Nandi is an award-winning Afro-Jazz and Afro-Soul singer/songwriter from Zimbabwe, renowned for her powerful, soulful voice, emotive lyrics, and captivating live performances that feature her signature percussion and drumming. With an expanding international tour presence, Feli has swiftly emerged as a leading figure in Zimbabwe’s contemporary music scene.
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Grupo MAVICHI (COL)
Current winners of the 2024 Festival de Músicas del Pacífico Petronio Álvarez in Colombia, Grupo MAVICHI was founded in 2015. Through traditional repertoires and original compositions, MAVICHI highlights the musical and cultural traditions of the Pacific region of Colombia.
Performance supported by the Colombian Presidential Agency for International Cooperation (APC Colombia) and the Festival de Músicas del Pacífico Petronio Álvarez
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Inkabi Zezwe (SA)
As a duo, multiple award-winning South African stars Sjava and Big Zulu make up Inkabi Zezwe, a project celebrating their connection as Zulus and musicians. Their initial single in 2023, ‘Umbayimbayi’, reached #1 on iTunes three days into its release.
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Internet Girl (SA)
High-paced, guitar-textured Hyperpunk boyband Internet Girl is the trailblazing product of a generation raised online. This dynamic trio from Cape Town, South Africa, has carved out a unique niche, blending the raw, grunge energy of a live band with innovative, cutting-edge production.
Performance supported by Igoda, the Southern African Music Festivals Circuit.
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Intsatsakusa (SWZ)
Intsatsakusa, meaning “dawn” in Siswati, is a collaborative music and dance performance by Bheki Nhleko, Sanele Simelane, and Umthilane kaShoba, a family dedicated to reviving the sacred Umthilane art form. In an explosive gravity-defying opening ceremony, they will awaken the spirit and ignite the fire within!
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iPhupho L’ka Biko (SA)
iPhupho L’ka Biko is a Johannesburg-based Pan-Africanist collective that fuses Jazz with indigenous Imvumane and iGwijo. Through music, the collective explores spirituality, culture, religion, heritage, race, and displacement, aiming to spiritually awaken the human race.
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Jembaa Groove (GHA, DEU, BEN, ISR, CUB, PRT)
Known for rousing and energetic live performances, Berlin-based Jembaa Grooveblend a melting pot of influences, with a contemporary take on ‘70s Ghanaian Highlife, Jazz and Soul, powered by celestial guitars, dreamy horn lines and sublime vocals in Twi, Ga and Pidgin English.
Performance supported by the Goethe-Institut, Jazz re:freshed and The Dig.
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Khole (SWZ)
Khole is an Afro Soul singer and songwriter from Eswatini. Her music is influenced by Jazz and Neo soul, as well as traditional and contemporary African music. Khole examines her African identity through deeply personal themes, exploring mental health, abuse and inequality unflinchingly, ultimately finding happiness through love and self-determination.
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Kujenga (SA)
Kujenga, from the Swahili “to build”, is a dynamic, conscious, improvisational Jazz outfit based in Cape Town. Winners of Newcomer of The Year at the Mzansi Jazz Awards 2024, The band released their debut album, “Nationality” in 2019, followed by “In The Wake” in 2024.
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Ladysmith Black Mambazo (SA)
Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s legacy is a testament to music’s power to bridge divides and bring people together. Celebrating 65 years in the music industry this year, their timeless melodies and harmonies continue to inspire and uplift audiences around the globe, making them cultural ambassadors for peace and unity.
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Lia Butler (SA)
Nombulelo Mzobe, aka Lia Butler, is an emerging singer-songwriter from Durban, South Africa. Rapidly gaining recognition with the distinct sound she calls Neo Zulu, blending Neo-Soul, Umbhaqanga, Maskandi, RnB, and Amahubo, she recently released her highly anticipated single, ‘Imimangaliso’.
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Madala Kunene & Sibusile Xaba (SA)
The “King of Zulu Guitar”, Dr. Madala Kunene is a genre unto himself, earning a Doctorate for his lifelong, and ongoing, contribution to the development of indigenous music and to the music of Africa and that of the world. He teams up with charismatic guitar savant Sibusile Xaba, who reframes Maskandi and the Avant Garde into his own humanist manifesto, to perform the MTN Bushfire CollaboNation 2025 song, created together with inspired Eswatini drummer Tlale Makhena.
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Money Badoo (SA)
Money Badoo is a genre-defying South African artist who blends alternative Hip Hop, RnB, and experimental sounds to craft music that is both bold and vulnerable. Known for her dynamic presence and boundary-pushing style, she has quickly become one of the most compelling voices in South Africa.
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Nduduzo Makhathini (SA)
A multi-award-winning and internationally acclaimed artist, Nduduzo Makhathini is an improvisor, scholar and musicologist at the University of KwaZulu Natal School of Arts. His practice and scholarship focus on constructing alternative sites for practicing and theorising Jazz studies in South Africa that consider ba-ntu cosmologies as points of departure.
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Steam Down (GBR)
Founded by multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer Ahnansé in 2017, Steam Down’s music is a powerful force of raw energy, fusing Afro-Punk and Jazz to create a finely tuned alchemy of sound, space and energy, enriching human emotional, social and collective state of being through music.
Performance supported by Jazz re:freshed and The Dig.
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The Dizzy Brains (MDG)
The Dizzy Brains are an energetic garage Rock band from Antananarivo, Madagascar. Their raw, powerful, punk-inflected, sometimes vintage, Rock sounds a militant call to action against complacency in the face of corruption, poverty, abuse, and drought due to global warming.
Performance supported by Igoda, the Southern African Music Festivals Circuit.
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Young Zesh & Lyrikal Busta (SWZ)
Inspired by growing up in musical families, Young Zesh and Lyrikal Busta are two of Eswatini’s fastest-rising young Hip Hop and Afropop artists. They have a string of MTN SWAMA, National Arts and Culture, and Eswatini Creators Awards and nominations between them.
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Zara McFarlane (GBR)
Zara McFarlane is a multi-award-winning vocalist, songwriter, composer, producer and vocal coach with 5 critically acclaimed albums to her name. Her sound is distinguished by her melding of multiple influences from Jazz, Reggae, Folk, Nu-Soul and Electronica. Her most recent work explores early Jamaican folk traditions.
Performance supported by Jazz re:freshed and The Dig.
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Zee Nxumalo (SWZ/SA)
22-year-old Zee Nxumalo’s meteoric rise from TikTok sensation to multi-platinum selling Amapiano star has been propelled by sultry melodic hits like “Ngisakuthanda”, national club banger “Funk55”, and hit collaborations such as the Afro-tech anthem “AmaGear” and her latest project “Inja Ye Game”.
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