Toya Delazy

Photo: Ally Sdi

Name, where are you from?

Toya Delazy - Zululand, Mahlabathini.

Describe your style in three words?

Classic, Street, Vintage.

What’s the best gig you’ve ever been to?

UK BLACK PRIDE Haggerston Park - As a South African I got to connect with the LGBTQI BLACK community in Europe it was amazing to have the chance to play my Zulu music and get such a great response.

If you could be on the line up with any two bands in history?

Benjamin Clementine because as much as I am a raver I am also a classically trained Jazz pianist - I have been composing since the age of nine. On the rave side of things KOKOKO the meld of music and energy is what I am about. I want to be part of festivals where people are there for the experience not to shine their phones at me.

Which Subcultures have influenced you?

Punk Kulture - freedom and style / Goth Kulture - owning their sacral chakra homies own themselves and own their dark matter.

If you could spend an hour with anyone from history?

Jesus - did he even exist - or is it really the greek God Zeus hanging on a cross painted by Micheal Angelo? His pictures didn't exist for 200 years - the image of Jesus is modelled on Cesare Borgia, Pope Alexander VI commissioned new paintings of Jesus using his illegitimate son.

Of all the venues you’ve been to, which is your favourite?

Apollo Theatre in Harlem New York - The energy from rubbing the tree of hope and also the energy of the audience never mind the staggering history it carries. My portrait currently hangs there, after I performed for African Now in 2013. Powerful place.

Your greatest unsung hero or heroine in music?

My Great-grandma, Princess Magogo Ka Dinizulu, the first indigenous composer in Africa. She broke gender roles by being a praise singer, a role that was usually only reserved for men in Zulu culture.

Toya Delazy relocated from South Africa to London in 2017, announcing her arrival with a string of releases including her ten-track mixtape 'Jetlag' and her studio album 'Uncommodified'. Her latest single 'Funani' and its accompanying visuals demonstrate her visionary boundary challenging approach.