Marabi to Masekela: How to spend a jazz-filled weekend in Joburg

(This article first appeared as a Johannesburg newsletter. Subscribe here.)

Hugh’s, Braamfontein

The Hugh Masekela Heritage Foundation and Play Braamfontein have just launched a beautiful jazz venue overlooking the city from the 13th floor: Hugh’s. There are performances every Thursday. This week renowned drummer Tumi Mogorosi is on stage.

Dates: Every Thursday 19:00 - midnight

Address: 73 Juta Street, Braamfontein

Tickets on Quicket

The Offering

The Offering is a dynamic South African jazz collective born out of deep musical mastery and cultural expression drawing inspiration from traditional African rhythms, spiritual jazz, and contemporary improvisation.

Artists: Band Members & Highlights, Ndabo Zulu — Trumpet, Linda Sikhakhane — Tenor Saxophone, Gontse Makhene — Percussion, Sphelelo Mazibuko — Drums, Dalisu Ndlazi — Bass, Zibusiso Makhathini — Piano

Dates: 6 February

Address: Untitled Basement, 7 Reserve St, Braamfontein

Tickets: R350 on Quicket

Nkosi Sikelel’iAzania

Curated by Zama Phakathi, Nkosi Sikelel’ iAzania is a multidisciplinary exhibition examining the history and enduring legacy of apartheid in South Africa. Featuring works by Ernest Cole, Dumile Feni, Willie Bester, David Goldblatt, Noria Mabasa, Senzeni Marasela, Santu Mofokeng, Jurgen Shadeberg, Gerard Sekoto and more.

Dates: 7 February opening 10:00 - 15:00, on until 27 February

Address: Museum Africa, 121 Lilian Ngoyi Street, Newtown

Tickets: Free entry

A Million O’ Clock

A Million O’ Clock is a South African–Swiss musical collective led by saxophonist Benedikt Reising (CH), featuring Thandi Ntuli (SA) on piano, Shane Cooper (SA) on bass, and Paul Amereller (CH) on drums. Their music moves fluidly between South African musical sensibilities and European jazz traditions, favouring subtlety, texture, and improvisational freedom.

Dates: 7 February

Address: chiesa di PAZZO LUPi, Melville, 38 4th Ave

Tickets: R200 on Quicket

Yangthola!

Yangthola! is a multiple award-winning one-hander that follows the lived reality of a street dweller surviving through multiple income streams in South Africa. Through puppetry, heightened performance, comedy and Poor Theatre techniques, the production examines survival, dignity, and visibility within a harsh capitalist system. Yangthola! has received a Bronze Standard Bank Ovation Award and the Naledi Award for Best Fringe Performance (2025). The production offers a focused and socially urgent theatrical experience that speaks to questions of homelessness, substance abuse and visibility.

Dates: Until 15 February, Performances at varying times

Address: State Theatre Pretoria, 320 Pretorius St

Tickets: R100 on Webtickets

Lines Album Launch by Angus Hardcastle

Lines is the debut instrumental album by Angus Hardcastle. The project is rooted in groove and bass-led composition and is grounded in Angus’s studies of South African jazz and related traditions. A family friendly launch in a picnic setting. Guest performers Teboho Kobedi and Amongst The People I Know.

Dates: 7 February, 17:30 - 21:00

Address: Victoria Yards, 16 Viljoen Street, Lorenzville

Tickets: R200, Quicket

Hank Willis Thomas - Forever Now

America's Hank Willis Thomas presents new works that probe how we see, remember, and participate in shared histories. The exhibition brings together text-based lenticular works and retroreflective pieces collaging archival visuals, alongside sculptural and installation works. Thomas approaches the South African context with deliberate care, setting the African-American experience in conversation with South Africa’s own histories of struggle, aspiration and visual culture.

Dates: 31 January - 7 March, Tuesday to Friday 9:00-17:00

Address: Goodman Gallery, 163 Jan Smuts Ave, Rosebank

Tickets: Free

I am Momo and I Have Issues

Multi award winning actor and theatre director MoMo Matsunyane debuts her stand up comedy show. Known for merging comedy with tragedy in her works such as UNLEARN and Ka Lebitso La Moya, Matsunyane now lets us into her personal world and shares her experiences of growing up with a famous father, having a blended family, living with mental illness, relationships, sex, and politics.

Dates: 12 - 15 February

Address: Popart Centre, 59 Dorset Road, Parkwood

Tickets: R170 Popart centre

Retro R&B Sundays

The team who used to run Kitcheners can now be found at Ratz in Melville, so good times and interesting DJs and some karaoke are guaranteed throughout the week at this bar. Kurwen and Lenzo take you back to the 80s and 90s this Sunday with their R & B sounds.

Dates: 8 February
Address: Ratz, 9 7th St Melville
Tickets: Free

Old School Tuesdays

For the past two years DJ Lulo Cafe has brought his fellow deep soulful house DJs to play at Opera bar lounge in Rosebank. This Tuesday it’s Bobstar, Vinny Da Vinci and Sabz who’ll get you dancing.

Dates: Every Tuesday

Address: Opera, Rosebank, 2 Tyrwhitt Avenue

Tickets: Free

Afriverse – Step inside our storiesTuesday

AfriVerse invites audiences to step inside Africa’s imagination through powerful immersive storytelling, with Kwasukasukela, a striking reimagining of African creation myths that blends ancient cosmology with bold contemporary visuals to celebrate where our stories begin. The series then shifts into urgent conservation journeys.

Dates: From 7 February 14:00

Address: Wits Anglo American Digital Dome,Yale Road, Parktown

Tickets: R75 on Webtickets

Friyay Guest Essay — Laurice Taitz-Buntman

To understand Joburg, you must meet it at night

There’s been so much talk about the mayoral race this year – but that’s really only the daytime mayor. Johannesburg needs a night-time mayor. Someone tasked with thinking about what happens when the City changes character. How people move. How streets should be lit. How culture, safety, transport and joy intersect after dark. How Joburg has something to share with the world, writes urbanist Laurice Taitz-Buntman.

Joburg ‘Person of the day’

“I am guided by passion and hustle”, says Osmic Menoe, founder and director of the Back to the City Festival, Africa’s largest hip-hop and street culture festival. Menoe is also the founder of the annual SA Hip-Hop Awards. He uses hip-hop as a tool for inspiring and educating the youth, bridging the gap between street culture, government, and business, between underground and commercial. Menoe is also developing South Africa’s first ever hip-hop museum. It’s a massive space upstairs in Museum Afrika in Newtown, and while a section of it has been functioning as a recording and editing studio and workshop space since 2022, the spectacular South African Hip-Hop Museum will officially open later this year.

My go-to spot

Standard Bank Gallery | Cnr Simmonds and, Frederick St, Marshalltown, Johannesburg

…a very special gallery with fantastic art in ever changing exhibitions.

Picture of the day

(This article first appeared as a Johannesburg newsletter. Subscribe here.)