Radiant, rooted and revolutionary, the artistry at the core of Zoë Modiga’s Uyakhazimula tour could not be more fitted to an audience that longs to connect to something bigger and deeper than itself.
Here, two crucial things endure. First, Modiga’s desire to foster connection and opportunities for sharedness through her work. Second, the notion that our ingenuity functions as an eco-system, rather than a stroke of individual genius. For Modiga, honouring her own talents means honouring the many voices, “rockstars” and “cultural icons” alike, that have given rise to her own.
Referring to the onstage, touring component of her work as a “melting pot”, Modiga views each show as an opportunity for the philosophy and storytelling at the heart of the music to become an immersive celebration of shared heritage. Fashion has a unique power to communicate such stories in tangible and accessible ways and on-stage, Modiga is a force that puts this theory into practice. Driven by a spirit of storytelling and a desire to pay homage to her heroes and origins, Zoë Modiga invites us into her internal landscapes through the immersive visual language of Uyakhazimula and other stage performances.
Beyond the music, Modiga speaks to the assertion at the centre of the project: Uyakhazimula (meaning you are glowing/ luminous), through an intimate, unselfconscious language of performance, and a radiant visual language that deals in beaming yellows and silver sequins that reflect the spotlight and glimmer in the dark of the theatre.
Drawing from human experience, identity and the stories told to sustain it, Modiga’s distinct, jazz-infused sound channels the genre-transgressive oeuvre of those who came before her, namely the likes of Mam’ Busi Mhlongo, whose impact on Modiga was so profound that she paid tribute to her at the 2025 edition of the Mayibuye iAfrika Concert this June. Mam’ Mhlongo was an icon who carried the aesthetic sensibilities of her role and identity as a Sangoma in her musical performances and on-stage visual language. For Modiga, Mam’ Busisiwe Mhlongo demonstrated an enduring depth of expression that she will always aspire to.
Much like Mam’ Mhlongo, Modiga is grounded by the intimacy of her message and lyricism, all-the-while strengthened by the rigour and unbridled collective energy of on-stage performance. Each live performance sees Modiga’s rich visual language unfold with fashion functioning as an aide in the ritual of performance, a living, breathing archive and a tactile extension of her musical philosophy.
Image: Creative Director: Tatenda Chidora Photographer: John Baloy Retoucher: JP Hanekom Stylist: Didintle Ntshudisane Make-up Artist: Tammi Mbambo
Throughout the tour, we’ve also seen Modiga experiment with Afros, coily wigs, and corn-row hairstyles adorned with cowrie shells. Laden with symbolism and collective cultural memory, her hair is another key character, a living archive of elaborate styles that reference and adapt pan-African hair traditions, from the Zulu to the Yoruba. According to Modiga, her hair is a labour of love that happens to enhance the storytelling on-stage. She cites her mother, whose creative commitment to re-imagining the everyday beauty of natural hair influenced her own cross-cultural, exploratory approach to wearing natural hair styles, and weaving them into the overall ritual of homage that is central to Uyakhazimula.
As much as she is a leading contemporary voice in music, Modiga is fixture in the art culture-fashion community who has, throughout her career, worked with the full vanguard of contemporary South African designers; Thebe Magugu, Rich Mnisi, UniformZA, Lukhanyo Mdingi, Viviers and more. In many of her performances, she’s dressed by long-time friend and collaborator, Nao Serati, whose work she describes as an “anchor” to her visual storytelling.
Perhaps what unites Modiga, not only with her always-captive audience, but with the African designers whose works have featured on the Uyakhazimula tour and other stage appearances, is the shared contemporary vision of heritage that each of them hold in their back pocket, rooted in the strengths and virtues of its time, even as it honours elder wisdom.
Photographer: Nkosikhona Zulu Stylist: Nao Serati Mofammere Clothing: Nao Serati
Ranji Mangcu (RM) for Robb Report Africa: Who is one African designer that you collaborate with often?
Zoë Modiga (ZM): I’ve collaborated with many incredible South African designers such as Thebe Magugu, Rich Mnisi, UniformZA, Lukhanyo Mdingi, Siyababa Atelier, Neimil, Viviers to name a few.
I have the pleasure of working alongside Nao Serati’s genius, whose pieces I wear often for performances and important engagements. Ours is a collaboration and friendship over many years and the work we’ve been able to build carries that soul. I appreciate how he merges worlds in a way that gives edge to the South African narrative. It’s unpretentious yet innovative and still so exciting to me. When we co-create and share thoughts and ideas, I feel like a kid in a candy store. Serati awakens the child-like wonder in me. It is a privilege to create from that freedom, that need to play. His work has been a huge anchor to my visual story and I’m honoured both as a friend and colleague.
RM: The notion of ukukhazimula, to shine or radiate, shows up with such resonance, not only in the dazzling sequins and warm tones of your on-stage wardrobe, but in the warmth of the gathering that is convened around your music creating a glowing connective thread. When you chose this name, did you already have these visual codes in mind?
ZM: A glowing connective thread is a beautiful way to put it. Uyakhazimula is a tour concept birthed by BandaBanda of the BandaBanda Agency that was inspired by a song of mine with the same name. When building the visual story, the first word that came to mind was disco ball. I wanted to re-imagine and capture the je ne sais quoi of some of our prized rockstars and cultural icons and affirm that we here today are of the same essence.
I wanted the stage to feel like a dimly lit room where we all share the same energy and take each other in fully. I wanted us to give in to the moment completely and effectively bounce the “energetic light” to each other throughout the show.
This tour seeks and acknowledges human connection and us seeing the best in each other. Not because the worst is absent but as an act of radical joy in a burning world.
RM: When clothing enters the space of live performance, it often becomes a moving, tactile character, expressive and engaged in the ceremony and choreography of a performance. Does the act of dressing or styling your hair ever serve as a physical or emotional prompt in your performances?
ZM: Absolutely, hair is a beautiful language I’ve enjoyed immersing myself into emotionally and physically: From the braids to the cornrows and wigs, I’ve had a lot of fun. Drawing from astrology and my Leo moon, which is a fiery version of myself that is fully embodied on stage, I’ve been relating my big tour hair to a mane. It really does bring out that quiet roar. Every garment and hairstyle has a character waiting to be embodied and I love discovering what these pull out from me.
RM: Beyond the aesthetic, how we care for and explore our hair today is a by-product of age-old rituals. Laden with symbolism and collective cultural memory, it can also become a living character in the process of performance.Is this something that you had in mind when curating the visual codes of the Uyakhazimula tour?
ZM: Love that! Yes. Everything is memory and especially hair that grows from our scalp which holds our memory box. I’ve been enjoying modernising Afro positive hairstyles and wearing wigs that speak of the same. I love how hair grows in my head yet it is its own being with considerations and care needed. It’s a labour of love much like everything else that accentuates the stage story.
RM: Throughout the tour – and even some time before –we’ve seen your hair become a living archive of elaborate styles that explore, reference and adapt pan-African hair traditions, from Zulu to Yoruba. Have you always had this cross-cultural, exploratory approach to styling your hair? If not, where did it begin?
RM: I’m a millennial, global citizen with a wealth of inspiration to pull from and an inner world to live out. My mother always told me how she was called, “u-natural”(meaning the natural one) in her college years as she would style her own hair in various ways. I think I have taken from that yet always looking for ways to re-imagine the beauty of our hair.
I released my 1st album bald-headed which was freeing and bold at the time. It was interesting, how almost alien like I was received, like I did this big, brave thing by walking around with my lovely scalp (haha). My hair growth journey has been so expansive to me, as a tool to recall the many versions of myself I have been and to also nod at the traditionally charged pan African hair works we’ve enjoyed. It’s about the keeping of beautiful hair cultures alive and actively helping to evolve the language in it too.
RM: Music as a conduit for connecting with ancestry is a connective thread that was powerfully channelled by Mam’ Busisiwe Mhlongo in her musical performances.This lends a kind of poeticism to the way you’ve been able to access and connect with her presence and legacy through your own artistry. Where did your relationship with her work begin?
ZM: Apparently my father, who I’d visit once a year, used to play her often, though I’ve associated the sonic landscape of those visits with other artists.
My 1st recollection of MaMhlongo was on Ringo Madlingozi’s Live CD/DVD where she makes a guest appearance and even then I think I was musically too young to grasp her.
It was when I released, [my song] Inganekwane from Yellow: The Novel and everyone likening that song to her essence that I began to really study her music, impact and legacy. It’s been a wonder world ever since.
RM: Mam’ Busisiwe Mhlongo was a Sangoma; a conduit between the material and spiritual worlds. With deep pride and a sense of freedom, she carried the aesthetic sensibilities of this role/identity through in her musical performances and on-stage visual language. Would you say that sense of ownership and expressive freedom reverberated in how she’s influenced you as an artist?
Mam’ Mhlongo seems to me to have dug into deep wells to arrive at her expression. She to me symbolises the height and depth of expression. None of what she has ever shared digs at the surface and that far reaching thing is what connects me most to her. She is in my big three alongside Nina Simone and Letta Mbulu.
My musical and performance freedom on the other hand has been self-defined and carried by those I walk with. My own freedom exists outside of respectability politics and tends to be disruptive in some ways. It’s childlike and persuasive, sensual and spirited. It seeks to pull out of others their full selves with no inhibitions, so long as it is no harm to the next person.
It’s almost recklessly carefree, euphoric, abundant, trance-like and otherworldly. It’s the act of giving in. It really is an act of service to do what we so I get to feel like all my best selves up there.
Ranji Mangcu is a writer and creative whose work spans fashion, culture, identity, and the importance of the African archive. A graduate of the Michaelis School of Fine Art and Central Saint Martins London, she brings a curator’s eye and a storyteller’s touch, exploring the aesthetics and politics of style with the conviction of someone deeply rooted in both art history and contemporary African style expressions.
