The DSTV Delicious Festival A Night To Remember!

The DSTV Delicious international food and music festival has been on the tip of everyone’s tongue
since the exciting line-up was announced. The headlining Erykah Badu may have been the biggest
drawcard for most patrons but the well rounded line-up gave as a balanced and magical African and
international experience, well suited into South Africa’s heritage day weekend

Producer and DJ, Sun El Musician brought his authentically South African sound and warmed up the crowd up with some of South Africa’s favourite tunes. The “Akanamali” hitmaker moved the crowd the most with his hit song Sonini. On the main stage, we also saw an electrifying performance by Tresor who always delivers good African music, as well as Kenyan artist Liz Ugumbo who woo-ed the crowd with her Ken-soul sounds, dancing and stunning African regalia

The Vodacom Dance Arena line-up was just as vibrant with house greats such as DJ Fresh, Oskido
and Ganyane who had the crowd dancing to some great throwback songs.

The show headline act Erykah Badu did not disappoint.

She dazzled the crowd with some of her Dj skills, with a live band and a synthesizer making eccentric beats that cued into some of her all time classic songs.

She held nothing back on the production and was herself a work of art on stage. She came out with a jellyfish shaped, luminescent umbrella, an iconic large white hat and convex jewellery that went from her head to her nose as well as some cosmic looking shades. Her outfit was riddled with African accents which was very meaningful over Heritage weekend. Her headgear look was seemingly inspired by multimedia artist and sculptor Maikoiyo Alley-Barnes in one of his Black constellation themed art works. She was a pulchritudinous wonder

The afro-soul bird brought out various themes in her performance that her fans know and love her for, including playing out the “evolve” theme she sings on in the song “Window seat” and removes various layers of her regalia as the performance plays put. The crowd was singing along word for word songs from her discography dating as far back as Penitentiary Philosophy and Mama’s gun; not excluding any of her classic gems. Her performance was drenched in heart and soul as she had moments of breaking into dance and equally enjoying the energy from the crowd.

She ended her set with the all- time classic, call Tyrone which left the crowd screaming and closed off with loud chants of “My people”.

In living up to the irony of her alias, miss Erykah Badu aka Medulla Oblangata aka Cerebellum aka Fatbelly Bella ended the show by announcing that she’s pregnant, which finally made sense of moments in the show where she kept randomly pulling up her shirt to give a sneak peak.

In a later Instagram post she cites “Thank you South Africa. We just connected like a mother…land. The ancestors came out the drums tonight, didn’t they? We danced the stars out. Grateful. Always with you – Badu”

Written By: Oreratile Ray Itumeleng

Photo By: Sandrine Kossi @sandrinekossi