Malaika Gcobo on her debut album and the power of collaboration

Musician Malaika Gcobo is set to release her debut album.

The singer, who graduated from Afda with a BA in live performance in 2018, is an eclectic soul artist who uses her music as a vehicle to challenge stereotypes and confront dogmas to liberate minds.

The Pretoria-born singer believes in collaborating with like-minded creatives.

The launch is taking place on March 26, at the Open Window Institute's Now Gallery in Centurion.

“The identified art form for the inaugural project for Fusion Volumes 1 is music, with 10 artists comprising poets and musicians randomly paired to collaborate, forming five groups, each tasked to create a music piece that will form part of a collaboration EP,” she told TshisaLIVE.

“The problem we seek to solve through this movement [is that] we are promoting collaboration as currency, while creating opportunities for up-and-coming artists ... to showcase their talent and earn an income. We do this by bringing them together to co-create products that will in turn create income for them.”

Fusion Volumes 1 is an initiative of Choxen Factories. The purpose of the Fusion Volumes is to promote collaboration across art forms, genres and styles in the entertainment industry. This will build an ecosystem of creative talent, founded on trust, skill, friendships and a spirit of collaboration beyond any given volume. The theme for this EP is Synaesthesia Unravelled.

Synaesthesia is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. It's relevant for people who see, taste or hear colour when listening to music.

The theme of the EP Fusion Volume 1 : Synaesthesia Unravelled has been translated by allocating a colour for each of the five songs: mahogany, red, green, yellow and turquoise, inspiring each pair of artists to write a song with the chosen colour in mind.

“The colours allocated to each song present a practical way of understanding synaesthesia in order to create an immersive experience, by translating the colour through art pieces that were sourced through a competition, with artists asked to listen to a song of their choice and capture the essence of the song in visual art form.

“The next immersive experience will be the culinary experience, with refreshments created for each colour from food. This theme hopes to give the listeners and viewers a taste into the world of synaesthesia.”