NEO MUYANGA BAND

Based in Cape Town

Over several years, and mostly through the extraordinary duo, Blk Sonshine, Soweto-born Neo Muyanga has established himself as one of South Africa's most singular and deeply impressive musical talents. Formed with Masauko Chipembere in 1996, Blk Sonshine are one of the most innovative, listenable, and addictive musical experiences in the country. A couple of years ago, Neo decided to move to Cape Town, and although he still performs with Chipembere as Blk Sunshine, he is focusing on a solo career, combined with a lot of writing, composing, arranging and production.

Listen to My World
Listen to Born in a Taxi (BLK Sunshine)

Neo has become one of South Africa's most renowned contemporary musicians. And deservedly so. His most recent solo work ("The Listening Room" 2002 BMG Africa) is "a musical experience that opens the door on music from the genres of roots, jazz, pop, traditional, and trip-hop as well a plethora of sounds that Neo has created himself and that provide a sonic layering not frequently found in contemporary homegrown music" (BMG South Africa, 2003)

"The album’s biggest single, ‘My World’, is doing double duty as the theme tune to SABC’s ‘All You Need Is Love’, and will probably be the song everyone remembers ‘The Listening Room’ by. But everything else was a joy to listen to. ‘Jwaneng’ reminded me of Youssou N’Dour’s latest album, ‘Coono du Reer’, and Muyanga’s mingling of Sotho and English also recalled the Senegalese master’s fluid sense of language." (Jocelyn Newmarch, iafrica entertainment)

SA ROCK DIGEST on "The Listening Room":
'The Listening Room' The project signals the arrival of an impressive musical voice, and one still reasonably difficult to pin down. The reason for this lies largely in Neo's diverse musical terrain - roots, jazz, pop, traditional, and trip-hop - a sound introduced by Blk Sonshine through an eclectic bunch of hit songs, among them 'Born In A Taxi', 'Building' and 'Crazy'. For Neo, 'The Listening Room' comes out of a particular journey this Sowetan-born musician has been pursuing over the past year: "A year ago I took the decision to move down to Cape Town," he explained "Don't get me wrong - Jo'burg is great. My family is there but I also know so many people here and the business side of being a musician ended up consuming me - I felt like I was always in the car going to sessions and that there was very little time left to do any writing and recording. Every time I went to Cape Town I always felt very inspired to write - and it's the cheesy cliché. It is so beautiful and it has really given me to space to expand creatively. Ultimately it has benefited the songwriter and the artist in me. I've been able to focus on creating new songs which is what I love." The majority of 'The Listening Room' was recorded, produced and performed by Neo in his home studio (using a Yamaha digital multi-track). The album's opening track, 'My World', has already reached the ears of many South Africans as the theme song to the hugely popular SABC 3 "emotainment" show, 'All You Need Is Love'. There's also 'Jwaneng' ("in the grass"), 'Neverenough' (featuring Flow - a friend of Neo's whom he saw on the street one day and asked to come and do some spoken vocals), the seriously funky 'Nna Hatshe', the exquisite ballad 'Nalete' (heard previously on the 'A Moment In Cape Town' collection on the Wonder label), and the drawling, trip-hop influenced 'You Say'. Blk Sonshine will remain an ongoing creative entity and the duo will still record and create, but the space for pursuing other avenues is very much there. Neo himself is also getting more involved with other musical work - for films and, in particular, for dance - and recently composed a piece for Cape Town's JazzArt Dance Theatre. During 2003, Neo will be performing with a heavyweight live band (under the name 'Neo'), including a slot on the prestigious North Sea Jazz Festival-Cape Town 2003 line-up in March. 'Neo's' line-up boasts Concorde Nkabinde (bass), Barry Van Zyl (drums), and Priyesh (instruments like the Indian flute and the harmonium).