Nanette aims for timelessness and global resonance with her latest album, Painfully Happy.
At Nanette’s Johannesburg album listening session, friends, music industry peers, and media professionals gathered in a space transformed into her sanctuary for the night.
Her portraits lined the walls, rose petals in deep crimson hues carpeted the floor, and a custom drinks menu — named after songs from her latest project, Painfully Happy — was placed neatly on each table, inviting guests to sip her music in liquid form.
First introduced to audiences in 2022 with her debut, Bad Weather, Nanette has since become a sought-after collaborator, lending her velvet vocals to artists like Nasty C, Kelvin Momo, and Blxckie. Around 8 p.m., she took center stage, thanking those present before cueing up the body of work she has spent the past two years crafting. As the room swayed with her music, she moved between dancing, vibing, and reflecting on the path that led her here.
A highlight arrived midway through the evening with “Abazali,” her second single off the new album, when her parents joined her for a heartfelt moment. The cheers that erupted made the performance feel even more intimate, dissolving the line between show and shared memory.
Just a week earlier, Nanette sat down with OkayAfrica to unpack her creative process, her bond with R&B, and the classics that echo throughout her work. True to her word, those influences surface across the album — sometimes in melodies, sometimes tucked inside lyrics — like familiar whispers reframed through her own voice.“I wanted to step out of my comfort zone with this project, and really push the boundaries with the music and with myself and my writing. I feel like people will connect to it deeply. And given the trajectory of my career, this feels like the perfect time to release another full body of work. People have been waiting, and I’m very excited to see what happens,” Nanette says.
Nanette entered the industry with a strong performance background, having started singing in church at the age of eight. By 2020, while studying towards her law degree, she was uploading covers and originals to SoundCloud as a creative outlet. That period led her to producer and mentor Lee Global, who opened doors and introduced her to the wider scene. When Bad Weather arrived in 2022, it marked her official entrance, placing her among a new generation of R&B voices. She remembers those first years as “scary and confusing.”
“Most times, I really didn’t understand the whole crux of fame and how it works. I remember when the first few people came up to me, saying they liked my music and asked for a picture. It was such a surreal moment. But then I realized that a certain part of me would forever belong to the people. That was a crazy thing to accept.”
She remains fascinated by the power of art and how strangers can be utterly mesmerized by her presence. “The power of art, and of music specifically, is immense. I’m just grateful that I get to contribute to pop culture,” she reflects.
She has learnt how to balance her public and personal profile over the years, and finds it much easier nowadays to discern what to share and what to keep to herself. “There’s intimate parts of my personality and my life story that I don’t think I’ll ever feel the need to share with people. I also just try to remain as authentic as I can; what I do share with people is still very much me,” she says.
Painfully Happy, which follows on 2023’s The Waiting Room, is a strong album by every standard. It boasts stand-out bangers in “Abazali” and “Bad,” released earlier this year. Its production is elevated on every front, from the music itself to the vocal arrangements and song sequencing, and the songwriting is among the sharpest right now. Take “Make It Dance,” where she opens with the cinematic line: “I’ve got three blunts already rolled up for you / in my black night dress, I got on that Full Moon.” Produced by Dre Bombay (Ciara, Floetry, Jill Scott), the track is an ethereal gem that could have slipped seamlessly into the bustling soul scene of the seventies, the blossoming neo-soul of the nineties, or the evolving R&B vanguard of 2025.
“Dre was just playing me a bunch of beats. Our session was actually over, and I was so tired, and it was late. Mind you, he’s flying out the next day. He starts playing the beats for “Make It Dance,” and ten seconds in, I start recording the melody. And I was like, OG, we got one. The words just started flowing,” says Nanette, who left the session with the promise to come and finish up early the next morning. “I fell in love with that song instantly. I still can’t believe I had the opportunity to work with Dre and make that song, it’s such a vibe!”
Intention is baked into every song, like emotions custom-made to fit the moment. The sonic palette stretches wide – from the R&B of opener “One Night,” to the Afrobeats swing of “Silent Killer,” the majestic 80s bubblegum of “Abazali,” the amapiano-esque “JJK,” and the head-nod hip-hop of “How Much Can You Really Take.” The production credits are just as expansive. Alongside Dre Bombay are regular collaborators Lee Global and Christer, as well as Herc Cut The Lights, Mathandos, Tru Hitz, Stacy, and a host of others.
“It’s beautiful to watch the journey introduce really amazing producers to me. I try not to force collaborations. I try not to look out for them or go out of my way, unless I really want someone specifically on a song. I just let the creation process do its thing, and in turn, I’ve been able to meet a lot of amazing producers and collaborate with boundlessly talented people,” she says.
“We might not have the big theatre budgets now, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have to put the theatre in the music,” says Nanette.
Photo by Mishaal Ganjaz
She does something surreal, almost magical, on “Silent Killer,” where she writes from both perspectives of people caught in a toxic and abusive relationship. “What happens when the roles are reversed, and how do we respond as a society?” she wonders out loud.
The idea struck while she was listening to Rihanna’s “Man Down,” where Rihanna sings from the perspective of a woman who has just shot and killed a man in a moment of fear and panic. “I was like, damn, people really slept on this song. But more than anything, they really slept on this concept. The way it’s framed is you might look at it as, oh, she just killed someone, but if you actually watch the video, there’s a backstory to it: she was protecting herself from getting killed. I was really taken aback by that, and I was like, hmmm, let me play around with this concept.”
“It also goes back to how much I love storytelling and creating very visual images. We might not have the big theater budgets now, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have to put the theater in the music.”
Nanette’s artistic roots trace back to her great-grandfather, the esteemed poet J.J.R. Jolobe, whose pioneering contributions to isiXhosa literature made him a towering figure in South African letters. “Language and literature were always a big part of our family. I feel like isegazini (it runs in the blood) more than anything. Poetry has really been with me my whole life,” she says.
Where Jolobe used poetry to preserve language and capture the nuances of his people’s lives, Nanette extends that legacy into a new century and a new form. “I can attribute the legacy of my ancestors, and specifically my great-grandfather, to a lot of integrity. My main goal is always to keep that same integrity and quality control that they were so strict about. They did a lot of work to leave their own legacies – a legacy of art, of creation, of history. That’s what I want to try and do as well. And in order to do that, I always question my integrity and my intentions. You can feel when something is not authentic,” she says.