Moonchild Sanelly

There’s no time for enjoying the start of the Johannesburg summer. Moonchild Sanelly has only a few more days at home, before flying over to Australia for some shows. “I’ve still got the UK,” she tells me. “And then we’re finishing other tours in Europe, then more in the UK. Then we’ve got more in Europe into December, then I'll be able to say: ‘I'll be here for the summer. So busy…” Before our chat over Zoom, I’d known she was a rising star. There’s been collaborations with Beyonce, Gorillaz, Steve Aoki, Ezra Collective and Self Esteem, which have all brought her to growing global attention. But I hadn’t anticipated just how much of a big deal she is in her homeland.

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Born Sanelisiwe Twisha, and growing up in Port Elizabeth, her signature sound is ‘Future Ghetto Funk’, a sub-genre of her own invention which seamlessly blends pop, afrobeat, hip-hop and Amapiano traditional polyrhythms. It’s infectious and impossible to ignore. These songs seem equally at home shaking stadium stages as they are on the hatchback bass bins on your local high street. The music Moonchild Sanelly produces could well be her ticket to global stardom. Something which is only confirmed by her compelling new album, Full Moon, which gets its release in the UK on Fri 10 Jan.

“I'm so happy with it. Being ‘full moon’ is in my journey. When you’re focusing on your goals, you don't have time to deal with anything which will slow you down. This album deals with situations like that. I've gotten here, but it wasn't all roses. I was able to let go, because I chose forgiveness so I could move forward. And so, I found words to express the things that I went through on my journey to being in this moment right now.”

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Recorded last year, the album was produced with Johan Hugo (who's previously worked with Self Esteem, Kano and MIA). She says the entire process lasted about four weeks, spread over several months – the time between giving her space to reflect and perfect. “When I write, I write quick. Maybe this is because I speak quick. Because the thing is, there's like.. a tape that's running. Should I cut that tape by slowing it down? I'm so passionate in the studio. It doesn't matter how much I achieve, how much my greatness is, how I'm viewed, whatever anyone says… the fact that I'm in a studio, able to just cook is awesome to me.”

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The crux of Full Moon is an unabashed vulnerability, which sits comfortable alongside its emancipation. Songs like Gwara Gwara, Scrambled Eggs, Sweet & Savage and Big Booty ooze commercial appeal; the album offering huge basslines, captivating rhythms and sing-a-long choruses. But beneath the pop sheen, there are layers of complexity; with lyrics telling tales of regret, understanding and empowerment. “Being able to find words to all those things came with me having chosen forgiveness. One of the songs is like a letter. I forgive my dad for just not being there. I did know him, as I lived with his mom, but he was married and whatever... He wasn't necessarily present financially when I was with my mom, just to help us with lunch money and things like that.” 

That titular full moon refers to many things, including a new stage in Moonchild’s life, where she’s become capable of rationalising her own life experiences, the people around her and how she can learn. She swore to start seeing a therapist the moment she could afford one. “A lot of times, music comes from a dark place. You just get into music being a channel. It’s expression and escape, which ends up touching people. But you forget to heal, because now everything else happens around you.” She says the common denominator between music stars who’ve died before their time was often how they remained unable to confront a troubled past. Her experiences have gone into her music, but it’s been part of a wider process.

“It's helped get me to my ‘full moon’, which is about carrying things I don't want to carry. I can write about those conversations I'll have with myself without excluding someone who doesn't come from the same narrative. For instance, one is about having run away from home after sexual harassment from my uncle - swearing it would be great to name and shame him, because I'm too cute for prison...” After leaving home, she’d had to grow up very fast on the streets. Coming to terms with the events has been a long process. Perhaps surprisingly, Moonchild has reframed this experience from a holistic perspective, finding empowerment and liberation in her understanding of what happened. 

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“I'm grateful for his animalistic behaviour. It wasn't right, but it’s re-stamped what I stand for. When I named and shamed him in the New York Times, during 2015, I realised in that moment it was bigger than that. You get to understand those things.” Her rationale is that the whole experience consolidated her worldview and voice, but it took a long time to get to this place.

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She’s willing to revisit those situations, viewing them from different angles and trying to establish a universal truth. Her song To Kill a Single Girl (Tequila), is at first hearing a soaring anthem to good times. But behind the gloss might be a paean to bad choices and sex-positivity. Like most of her work, it’s complex. Like a puzzle box which refuses to easily give up its secrets.

A feckless baby-daddy gets similar lyrical treatment. She says if he wasn’t so useless, she couldn’t have lived in Johannesburg or launched a music career. “I wouldn't have grown up fast. I wouldn't have been tough enough, you know. I'm like… grateful for his laziness.” The music comes from a personal place first, before addressing everyone else’s experience. But the world she creates is one where the absent fathers take accountability, rather than one where they’re simply handed forgiveness. On Big Man, her track with Self Esteem, they create a masculine identity predicated on the willingness to change. “I am that irresponsible father coming back to explain and now knows better. I won’t allow you to emotionally blackmail me into staying together. We're all going to take accountability, and we're going to let me make that decision myself. That's the man I'm designing for my world. But that man is rare.”

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In public, she hasn’t spoken much about spirituality but, in a way, it has lent to her positivity and sense of purpose. Her late mother was an Inyanga. Through an unsophisticated European lens, the role could be described as a healer. Although the term’s literal translation is ‘moon’, with practitioners offering leadership and a connection to tradition and nature to the community around them. “She used to ‘dream’. I feel like my manifestation and knowing how to use my words comes from being brought up by someone like that. I know my own channel is through music. I'm in my purpose… but definitely there's a level that is beyond me.” 

When performing live shows, she says she often accesses a similar state of reverie. “There's a point where I just lose my shit, and I don't know what happened. It doesn't feel like an hour… It feels like: ‘Oh my God, let's go!’ When I get offstage, and I'm just like: ‘What happened?’ It's crazy.”

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Later, she tells me much of her energy comes from being able to see who she is speaking to. “I can see who I'm liberating in that moment. I see who I’m touching. No matter what session it is, when I’m in the studio I always imagine my audience hearing the song for the first time – not knowing the words but being able to sing along. I want everyone to feel included, because this is bigger than me. It's about all of us.” No lie, she’s exhilarating to talk to, her mind racing ahead and pulling together seemingly disparate ideas and making them cohesive. And this barrage of ideas and raw energy flows throughout her work. .

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“I feel like my voice is just an instrument to be added into production,” she says modestly. But there is something distinctive in her approach to singing. “I think there's a playfulness which evokes something. One of the biggest compliments I get is: ‘We never saw it going there!’ I think it's how I hear.” Recently she had a revelation about how she perceives rhythm and sound. Dancing at a party in South Africa and minding her own business, she looked up to notice everyone else seemed like they were moving to a different beat. “We were all listening to the same song. My approach to music might be because of how I hear it. And I think that's what contributes to the limitlessness of my storytelling.”

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This seems like the next big thing she’s set to explore, telling me none of us realise the magic of our ears. “When you write, there’s a combination of the things you're in control of and the things there as a part of your being in your purpose. I’ve been in a studio and hear four different songs in one. You know, it's crazy.” While she might hear music differently, she’s been able to construct an album with international appeal. The roots of this are debatable, but my personal take is it’s the product of coming from a complex and diverse part of the world.

Not many aspects of South African society reach our shores, apart from news of politicians and sportspeople. My own knowledge doesn’t stray too far from Trevor Noah, the work of Kevin Carter and that chap who ruined Twitter. Moonchild does partially remind me of the fearless and singular Brenda Fassie, but I don’t really know enough about this 70s pop goddess to bring it up in the interview. The wider picture is that South Africa stands as a diverse melting pot – whether that’s on a cultural, ethnic or economic scale. The US might have exported their corporations, TV and music everywhere, but I’d argue the streets of Durban and Johannesburg might offer a better picture of what’s going on in the world. In response, she’s created a sound which is very global, but also connects with her community – including singing many verses in Xhosa.

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“I come from a household where I was allowed to express, be onstage and dream. I wasn't told all this was a hobby. My mom paid for me to study fashion, and so it started there. I resonated with the outside and when I started making music, I quickly realised my creativity is so wild that I felt like I would be limited if I kept it at home. I already viewed myself as a global artist.” This is essentially the beginning of Future Ghetto Funk. She’s been exposed to jazz, reggae and classical, but wanted to develop something which was truly hers.

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“I want to have fun. I want to exercise this licence of being an artist. It makes no sense to be operating according to parameters or being limited. I want to touch people. This is when I proceeded to not listen to any other people’s music. That's when it started, because everything is safe. I needed edge.” In her head was a picture, a feeling and dance moves. It was time to write her own story.

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“Yeah, that was the beginning. And then I had to fight. Labels didn’t understand it. Mind you, I had this in red!” She smiles and points to her (literally) trademarked hair. “They were like: ‘What the fuck is this?’ I've got my own music; I've got my own flag and I'm so sure... That was wild.”

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Several years down the line, and she’s a rising star back home, with endorsements, hit albums and music plastered across the airwaves. With an uncompromising message around sexual health and body positivity, she can still be a handful for TV and radio executives. “They’re usually on the edge of their seats, because they don't know what I'm going to say next. And they’re shaken by the truth,” she says with the hugest smile. “I’m just honest though.”

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The truth is, should the stars align, and this tour and new album sees her breakthrough into mega-stardom, the music industry might not be big enough for Moonchild Sanelly. When she moved to Johannesburg, she wrote down how she wanted her career to progress. There were things like having her name on billboards and foreign travel, which promptly happened. “Then in 2016, I wrote down that I was going to have three hits through collaborations in South Africa, and not change my voice. I ticked those boxes in 2017; all three hits, commercial successes, everything. Now, I'm taking whoever wants to jump on the wagon to my world. To my Future Ghetto Funk. Which is what differentiated me when I came into the commercial space. My approach is always just mine. And that's a contributing part of my full moon. I'm definitely still on script.”

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Moonchild Sanelly plays Brighton’s Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts on Tues 19 Nov. Her new album Full Moon is realised on Fri 10 Jan, via Transgressive Records

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www.attenboroughcentre.com 

www.moonchildsanelly.com 

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