In a matter of hours South Africa’s Grammy Award-winning DJ Black Coffee will be making history as the first South African DJ/producer to headline the world’s most iconic arena, Madison Square Garden.
Ahead of the historic show in New York, Castle Lite hosted an official send-off party for the ‘Superman’ hitmaker, headlined by some of the country’s top artists.
Before the festivities began, actor and presenter Lawrence Maleka hosted a press briefing where the internationally-renowned DJ shed light on what the historic show would be like.
The musician has always made it his mission to take his music to global heights and not have it watered down for international audiences.
This is something he’s managed to achieve; his 2010 hit ‘Superman’ featuring Bucie went on to be sampled by international rapper Drake on his song ‘Get It Together’ featuring Jorja Smith.
With Black Coffee taking his African music to the corners of the world, one wouldn’t have imagined and now he is about to conquer another milestone in his career - Madison Square Garden.
The 47-year-old will be supported by the amapiano twin duo of Major League DJz and will have special appearances by the likes of Bucie, Msaki, Delilah Montagu, Maxine Ashley, Monique Bingham and Roland Clark.
When the line-up was revealed there was criticism amongst fans about who didn't make it but at the press conference, Coffee explained that the line-up is not about who but more about the song set for the show.
“When we do a show, I just have to look at people that I’ve worked with and I'm like okay, how do I start a show, what’s the first song, not who’s the artist? What’s the first song to start the show with, how is the flow of the show, and how do I end the show?
“Meaning it’s not about I want this one, I don’t want this one, it’s about the show. It’s always about the music, and how we represent this music on the highest level.
“Hence the people that I’m going with, it’s people I’ve worked with and are highly talented and I know that they will excel.”
Locating multi-award winning musician Msaki was a bit of a task for Black Coffee because of her having taken a sabbatical from the industry, but she couldn't miss the honour of lending her voice to perform at the iconic show.
“I’m in this liminal space where I’m unlearning and strengthening myself differently because I want the longevity and I want to be able to catch songs for the rest of my life in a way that makes sense.
“And so I was like if there is a way to step out of that, this is one of the reasons to witness somebody who has done that in their career. So I was like I can make this exception because I’ve been witnessing your milestones, it would be silly to miss this one,” said Msaki.
“I was honoured and it was a no-brainer, so as I heard I was like I was going to be there anyway, I don’t mind singing, I would be happy to sing. It doesn't feel like a different thing because I was going to be there to see it and if I get to serve the song with a song, I'm happy to do that.”
As the dream gets closer to being a reality, the music maestro has been letting fans in on the preparations with updates on Instagram.