Zoë Modiga: This is 30

“People think I’m a jazz artist and I’m not a jazz artist,” Zoë Modiga tells me as we relax on an old wooden bench under a tree and enjoy the cool shade.

“I’m just an artist being recognised in that space, having been a scholar of that space. There is more I have to offer in terms of the palette and landscape of sound,” Modiga continues after I ask about the biggest misconception about her.

If Lebo Mathosa, Nina Simone, Letta Mbulu, and Busi Mhlongo had a fantastical baby Frankenstein in the fictional world of scientist Dr Godwin Baxter (Poor Things), Modiga would probably be the pop-culture hybrid. Her sound has an underpinning fluidity that has mutated into an idiosyncratic mixture of Afro-pop, funk, rock, soul, new wave, and everything in between.

“I would describe it as African contemporary sound — it’s the different parts of what modern African music can be, Afrofuturistic music,” she says.

You haven’t experienced Modiga’s brilliance until you’ve seen her live. Simply put, Modiga is a beast on stage — super sexy, powerful, charismatic, and diva divine. She has the gift of taking her audience into a heightened trance-like state, then transporting them further than an odyssey into nirvana — let’s call it Zoë-land. Often, my reaction to her high-octane performances is just, “Who is that mythical creature on stage?”

“The person I become on stage is a heightened version of myself. It’s a God version of me,” she explains. “It’s not something that I naturally invite, but it feels like it’s conjured simply by being [on] the platform of the stage. Knowing what the stage is and what is required of me. When I perform, all I ask for is to be impactful and move people.”

At 30, it can only get better, with Modiga revelling in her newfound self-confidence.

“I’m feeling more fun and zesty. More twerk and nipple rings. I’m feeling like a better design of myself,” she declares.

When I press her to elaborate about her experience being part of the born-free generation, her response is more loaded.

“Being a born-free is so layered. After 1994 there was this idea of a rainbow nation [with] democracy and more opportunities,” she says. “We were born under a different system and there was so much promise about it being a melting pot. While it was a beautiful thing when you were younger, the older you get you realise there is a lot of legacy from the previous way of living with oppression, that it’s still running through in whispers in our everyday lives. You will still be stereotyped and racially profiled — we have inherited those problems. There is that shadow that keeps following us.”

Born in Durban, Modiga was raised in Pietermaritzburg. Later, she moved to the Vaal, before relocating to Joburg. She attended high school at the National School of the Arts and name-checks now-famous school mates such as Innocentia Manchidi, Langa Mavuso, Dineo Langa, Keenan Meyer, and Dineo Nchabeleng.

Next, she marvels about her father, who she guesstimates has about 25 children.

“I think, in that number, I’m closer to the older gang — I used to be in the middle, until I discovered more,” she laughs. “My parents had a very deep, platonic relationship and I was the love child. They remained friends, even though they didn’t have a romantic relationship.”

Music has always been the career path for Modiga. In school she participated in choirs and won a lot of music competitions. She notes that some of the prize money would eventually go into her debut album. At the University of Cape Town, she studied jazz but was devastated when she couldn’t complete, especially coming from an academic family. Around the same time her neo-soul band Seba Kaapstad, with members Philip Scheibel, Ndumiso Manana and Sebastian Schuster, was formed.

“Back then I was so green, had little experience, and was full of childlike ambition. [But] I had the mental fortitude to see my ideas through. It was a fun time of not being jaded and betting on myself,” she says.

Her debut solo album, Yellow: The Novel, released as an independent artist, dropped in 2017. She remembers collaborating with Aart Verrips, Nao Serati, and Rich Mnisi on the artwork. Modiga was coming off the buzz of having been a contestant in the inaugural season of The Voice SA, with Lira as her mentor. She’d finished in the top eight. Her second offering dropped in 2020. Along the way she was recognised with the Standard Bank Young Artist Award, a South African Music Award and more.

“I just remember a sea of yellow and the queers coming in wearing yellow and looking fresh to death in every show. I remember going to every radio station begging for them to play my album,” Modiga says about the excitement of her debut album.

She’s gearing up for the release of her third album, which she has been working on since 2020. A first taste came with the single Ngelosi, which she released on her 30th birthday on 23 February. During the interview, she promises the album will drop in the first quarter, teasing an April release date. The art for the song features a topless Modiga, wearing three layered isicholo (Zulu traditional hat) in reference to a halo, since Ngelosi translates to angel.

“It’s a very matriarchal, cinematic, and sacral album. There is something ceremonious about it. It’s a different kind of church,” Modiga teases. “I didn’t think I would make it to 30. I had a morbid perspective and very flawed thinking about myself as a human being and maybe my artistic life. I thought I was going to be a 27 Club [artists who all died at 27, including Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain]. It was beautiful to reach 30, to realise how many lies I’ve been telling myself, and just celebrate that through the lyrics of the song [Ngelosi]. It’s like a message to my childlike self, who I feel like I’m walking closer and closer to the older I’m getting.”

Now that she’s on the third floor, Modiga plans to explore new opportunities, including scoring films, an acting career (particularly in film), and writing more music for other artists.