South African writer, actor and writer Nakhane Touré (31) will not be silenced. Resistance defies with a raised head, with a somewhat mocking look in his beautiful androgynous face. His vulnerability is his strength, Nakhane is a queer artist on a mission.
Last weekend he was a defining artist at the Rotterdam music festival ‘Motel Mozaïque’ where he performed to promote his new album ‘You Will Not Die’. An emotionally charged, loneliness-drenched collection of his own written songs in the soul and electro styles, in which he sings about his homosexuality and how he crawled under the yoke of a homophobic South African church community.
But not only as a musician does Nakhane attract attention, also as an actor. With his leading role in the controversial film of the South African director John Trengrove ‘The Wound’ (2017), he explained the taboo of being a young gay man in the Xhosa community. Xhosa is one of the largest ethnic populations within the Rainbow Nation.
The film caused a lot of commotion in South Africa when it appeared, although there was an Oscar nomination for best foreign film. After intense protests, the film was banned from the South African cinemas early this year. Nakhane felt broken as he mentioned on Twitter; ‘raw as a fresh wound’.
Broken but not defeated, his music frees his soul he says. On his album ‘You Will Not Die’ Nakhane raises all the heavy subjects and taboos in his Xhosa community while coming out as a gay man; self-acceptance, finding an identity, anonymous sex, confusion, leaving his church and religion and finding his own spirituality.
source: NRC Handelsblad 19th April 2018- Amanda Kuyper