Moonchild taking over the world, one festival at a time

A fortnight ago I was, as per usual, over-researching for an interview. Neither “Password” nor “Password123” worked on the old Mac desktop in my son’s room here at home. “Try our pets’ names from then,” he suggested on the phone from Cape Town where he now works.

Then was 2009 when he was in Grade 8 and had to do a school essay titled “My Jozi”. His focus was on Joburg musicians and I helped him get interviews with Moonchild Sanelly and Nakhane (who was then still using Touré as a surname). Both musicians were wonderful and generous with their time for an awkward teenage boy, but one with hints of coolness.

I was keen to see what the star-struck teenager had written about the fascinating blue-haired Moonchild, whom he interviewed at a Maboneng street café one afternoon after school. (I was of course dispatched to the next table in case I tried to steal his show.)

Now 15 years later it is me doing the interview. It is Moonchild again. She is frantically packing for a flight to Portugal for an upcoming show while listening to my stories and replying to my questions on the other side of a Zoom call.

The reason for our chat is that on her return, she will perform in the Road to Amapiano Festival happening on Saturday at Constitution Hill in Johannesburg.

It is a musical celebration of three decades of South African democracy, featuring influential artists and DJs such as Oskido, Thebe, Glen Lewis, Ready D, Nasty C, Tamara Dey and Boom Shaka. 

The festival will highlight the evolution of genres such as kwaito, Afro-house, gqom, Afrotech and amapiano.

“It’s really nice because just going on stage with people that babysat you is ridiculous,” she says. “So just being celebrated is something that I’m not used to from this country. Being seen feels good.

“Just to be recognised in that space as one of those people, that’s fucking amazing.”

Now 39 and on top of the music world, Moonchild is as unassuming, witty, bubbly, smart and engaging as back when I first encountered her in some of Joburg’s underground music haunts.

She shrieks with laughter when I tell her that even the pets’ names couldn’t open the stubborn old computer to tell us what the Grade 8 essay contains. 

She’s genuinely interested to hear what my boy — now a confident young architect — is up to.

We haven’t had a proper chat for about 15 years.

“It’s so nice to hear your voice again,” I tell her.

“It’s nice to use it,” she replies and giggles. “I don’t know if I know how not to, actually.”

That voice — plus hard work, determination, commitment and talent — is taking her around the world. In July and August it was the Womad,  Green Man and Shambala festivals in the UK, followed by back-to-back gigs in Germany, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands and France. All high-energy shows with crowds roaring back her lyrics and erupting in delight when she does her booty-shaking routines.

That was after her trailblazing performances at the UK’s most celebrated annual music festival, Glastonbury, which attracted 200 000 people this year. Many of them must have seen Moonchild performing — last year she did two performances, this year she did what was probably a record-breaking 10 shows.

But unfortunately she cannot be a fan girl at these fantastic festivals where some of the globe’s most interesting stars perform on the same bills.

“I can’t even enjoy myself in real life because I have to always preserve my voice and be mindful when it’s showtime,” she tells me.

Moonchild doesn’t even look at the line-ups anymore.

“I just need to shut up because I’ll be screaming. I get excited and then I scream and my voice is so high- pitched … It’s like, my God, I really kill it.”

Born Sanelisiwe Twisha, she grew up in Port Elizabeth, where her mum encouraged Moonchild onstage from a young age. Her music-filled childhood was full of creativity. Whether it was self-choreographing dance routines to Spice Girls tracks, teaching herself to play the piano, singing in church, or writing poetry, being artistically free was always encouraged.

She moved to Durban to study fashion. She quickly immersed herself in the buzzing music scene there, before moving to Johannesburg.

Here Moonchild established what is now her signature “future-ghetto-funk” sound, but life was tough, with periods of intense hardship: from the early death of her beloved mother, sexual assault, experiencing homelessness with newborn twins, and almost dying of malaria.

Since her award-winning debut album Rabulpha! (2015) put her on the map, she had a stream of South African hits. She signed to Transgressive Records in the UK, which released her second studio album Phases in 2022.

Moonchild is currently working on her third album, which will be released next year.

One can’t help of being reminded of that other trailblazer for being your own woman on your own terms, Brenda Fassie, especially when Moonchild unapologetically spreads the message of female sexual empowerment: “Liberation for women, in the bedroom, in the boardroom, knowing your power … I needed to be heard by a lot of people.”

Moonchild says that in her songs “I’m every girl” — from “good girls” to “bad girls”, single ones to “side chicks”.

Strippers have thanked her, she says, for her hit Strip Club — “They say thank you for representing us, because we used to hide our jobs until you spoke out loudly about us. It’s an adventure sport to own a vagina [in this country] so you might as well celebrate all of us.”

With her music being unashamedly sexy, it is no surprise that her interviews are what one can call frank. Moonchild said in a 2017 interview she never censored herself in any promotional interviews, which meant that her songs would be number one on 5FM, but “on Metro FM it will never show up because it’s too provocative for black South Africa”.

She tells me these days local radio is behind her, enhanced by her massive success overseas. But there is still some caution because when she does a live interview, “People definitely make sure I know that they are sitting on the edge of their seats because they don’t know what’s going to come out of my mouth … ‘Did I tell you you’re not allowed to say fuck?’”

She gives a mischievous chuckle.

“It’s just the truth, you know, I know how to speak in biology …”

Moonchild is making three show outfits before the afternoon’s flight to Portugal. I ask her who her style icon is.

“I’d say Vivienne Westwood. And also to be fair, I was called Vivienne Westwood at fashion school and I had to Google who it was.”

One of the most influential British fashion designers, the maverick Westwood was associated with the punk subculture fashion movement.

“Even at fashion school I never had fashion references,” Moonchild tells me. “I was the one girl who didn’t have those conversations about brands.”

Moonchild has had a number of high-profile collaborations so far, including Wizkid, Major Lazer & Diplo, Beyoncé and Gorillaz.

Beyoncé? “She’s amazing!”

And Damon Albarn, who is the brains behind the Gorillaz and Africa Express? “He’s fucking ridiculous. I love him.”

Moonchild says that future collaborations are focused on parts of the world where her star is in ascendancy, like the UK and Sweden.

It was this year’s Glastonbury that brought it home that she has really arrived in the big league. It wasn’t just the unprecedented 10 shows at the festival, but her blend of electro, dance and hyperpop being every-where across the British media, including on the staid Radio 4, which she wittily describes as “your SAfm of the BBC, where it’s just all opera and news”.

She adds as if though she is still pinching herself: “Oh, it’s crazy. And it’s happening right in front of my eyes.”

I tease her that she can probably make outrageous demands now that she is a superstar.

“The one thing I’ve learned from every living legend is humility; it is the one common denominator,” she says seriously.

And what is it like before she goes on stage?

“I go silent and I have a joint to calm down because I’ve got a lot of energy in general. So I just channel it. Yeah, then I calm down. Then I get nervous just before they announce my name …”

She chuckles.

“And then I want to pee and I don’t know why … I know my bladder is empty because I just peed.

“And that feeling … I don’t get over it. It’s the first song, then I’m just like, okay we’ve arrived. Let’s box it up. Then it goes wild from there.”