In the video release, the Rwandan-Belgian popstar treats us to a full musical experience.
Stromae's back, and his 9-minute song almost makes up for his five year hiatus.
'Défiler' is the singer's first release since his 2013 album Racine Carée. The sprawling track speaks of the journey one takes through life, calling routine and social norms into question.
While Stromae hasn't been producing music lately, he's still been busy. After finishing his world tour in 2015, he turned his attention to MOSAERT, the Belgian creative label he started in 2009 with his brother, Luc Junior Tam. The label focuses on music, audio-visual projects and fashion.
"Défiler" was composed by the brothers, and accompanied footage from a their first fashion show in Paris for their new collection "Capsule No. 5." The fashion line's unisex clothing is the creative child of Stromae's wife, designer Carolie Barbier.
The video is truly a piece of art, combining Stromae's finesse for music, style, movement, and aesthetic. You can (and should) watch it below.
Founder and creative director Kunjina Tesfaye speaks on her namesake brand, and how her personal evolution manifests through the unique garments.
In our 'Spotlight' series, we highlight the work of photographers, visual artists, multimedia artists, and more who are producing vibrant, original work.
In our latest piece, we spotlight Ethiopian fashion brand, Kunjina. The Addis Ababa based label focuses on ready-to-wear fashion and empowering woman through their garments and designs. Creator Kunjina Tesfaye established the brand in 2017 in her home country Ethiopia, and has since shared her distinctive designs with the world. Each garment acts as a physical embodiment of Kunjina's life experiences, and the stages we all go through to become closer to ourselves. "When the work comes from a personal place, it portrays a true feeling therefore the output becomes Authentic", the young designer says on the website. Each garment is carefully and intentionally created, as the company prides themselves on their choice to reduce unnecessary waste -- often times what happens with brands focused on trends.
Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
Describe your background as an artist and the journey you've taken to get it to where it is today.
When I was little, I loved playing around in my mother’s closet. Memories of my sister and I presenting fashion shows for the family over the weekends come to mind. I loved draping my mother’s extra-large clothes on myself. That time marks the beginning of my journey into design.
I attended Addis Ababa University to study construction management because my parents wanted me to have a "plan B" — something more "stable" — compared to my interest and passion in fashion design. While I was a fourth-year student, I took a short course in fashion design. Using what I learned there, I started small; by making clothes for myself and my friends. They loved it. Gradually, I grew into selling the designs I made on social media. During my senior year in college, I got accepted to the African Mosaique Fashion Incubator program which has made a significant impact on my career as a designer. I learned a lot about branding, production, and the business of fashion. I made a collection after completing the program, and it acted as a dialogue of my two worlds; a world where I pursued my passion for fashion design and the world where I am an Engineering student. I won an award for 'most creative and promising fashion designer' for my final collection. Eventually, Kunjina, my namesake brand, was born and I began to work on it full-time. Right now we have one physical store in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and we have recently branched out to the U.S with the help of our partner Fraol Bekele.
What are the central themes in your work?
All of our work revolves around empowerment. With each collection, we envision the empowered woman feeling her best self. Our upcoming collection, UDET, speaks of the transformation a woman goes through to find and fully express herself. It is metamorphosis; at the beginning, we see a larva, a simple being trying to figure out life for the first time. It goes through its own process and finally, we find the beautiful butterfly.
How has the pandemic affected you creatively?
For me, the difficult part was not being able to go out and socialize. I really love meeting people and going to events. Being unable to do that has really affected my creativity — and slowed down my pace. On the contrary, it made me realize how solitude is important for the growth of an individual. It was also a wake-up call to live and explore myself, through my immediate surroundings.
Can you tell us about your upcoming collection, UDET?
The name 'UDET' is a Ge'ez* word meaning 'cycle'. This collection is based on my personal experience on the topic and it shows the process of self-doubt, transformation, and self-actualization using the metamorphosis cycle of a butterfly as a metaphor. It has three stages and the color and theme of the collection varies according to each stage. In the Caterpillar stage; fear, sadness, and self-doubt arise, and manifest through black, with a heavily restrained use of red. Chrysalis explores the cocoon and transformation taking place inside, and the use of white see-through organza represents the shell. In Butterfly — the final stage where beauty, freedom, and self-actualization are visible — the free use of red, orange, and hints of black further magnify the story.
*Ge'ez (ˈɡɨʕɨz) is an ancient Ethiopian language
What advice do you have for upcoming designers trying to make it on the continent, and around the world?
Don’t be boxed. Explore your identity and stick to it no matter what. Have patience and always be a student.
Featuring Ayra Starr x Ckay, Kes, Davido x Skiibii, Pierre Kwenders and Rema.
Every week, we highlight the cream of the crop in music through our best music of the week column.
Here's our round up of the best tracks and music videos that came across our desks, which you can also check out in our Songs You Need to Hear This Week playlists on Spotify and Apple Music.
Nigerian singer Ayra Starrjoins forces with fellow Nigerian crooner CKayto bring fans a passionate reminder of how complex romantic relationships can be. The 19-year singer-songwriter has finally gifted us with the accompanying visuals to power ballad 'Beggie Beggie', off of her 2021 debut album 19 & Dangerous. The passion-driver music video features a strong nostalgic presence as the fashion choices favor old Nollywood styles and attitudes making waves again.
Kes 'Jolene'
Trinidad & Tobago's KES (aka KES THE BAND) come through with a burst of sunshine in the new music video for single "Jolene." The single is an ear-grabbing blend of soca, afrobeats, calypso and island pop flavors produced by British-Trinidadian producer Dwala. Its new clip, directed by Maya Cozier, centers its story on a fishing village as KES competes for Jolene's attention.
FKA twigs x Rema 'jealousy'
FKA Twigs dropped her new mixtape, Caprisongs on January 14. Ealier this month, she's shared "Jealousy," a fire new collaboration with none-other-than Nigeria's buzzing young gun Rema. The Nigerian artist hops in on the second verse of the song to drop a laidback verse about a girl who's too much in her feelings. The pair have now shared the new Aidan Zamiri-directed music video for the Caprisongs single. The clip upbeat and dance-heavy clip features choreography by FKA Twigs’ frequent collaborator Kash Powell.
Skiibii 'Baddest Boy (Remix)' ft. Davido
Superstar Davido aka "baddest" appropriately hops on the "Baddest Boy" remix from Skiibii. This one is sure to bang on the dance floors across Nigeria and beyond. It was produced by Rucheck.
Pierre Kwenders 'PAPA WEMBA'
Congolese-born, Montreal-based Pierre Kwenders announced his upcoming third album, José Louis and The Paradox of Love coming via Arts & Crafts. On lead single "PAPA WEMBA," “Papa Wemba,” Kwenders pays homage the “King of Rumba Rock” and pioneer of the La Sape, as well as his entire homeland.
We talked to the South African designer who, after co-winning the LMVH Prize last year, showcased his Bodyland Autumn/Winter 22-23 collection in Paris earlier this month.
In 2015, South African designer Lukhanyo Mdingi founded his eponymous label. Inspired by his mother and grandmother who raised him, Mdingi has created a formidable brand that is centered on building a bridge between heritage and timeless fashion pieces. Since the brand’s inception, Mdingi has made great strides in fashion, from his NYFW debut in 2019 to being crowned a joint winner of the 2021 LVMH Karl Lagerfeld Prize.
This year, Mdingi took his vision of Africa to France’s fashion capital, Paris, where he made his Bodyland Autumn/Winter 22-23 debut for the Paris Fashion Week Menswear Collection. Being the first designer on the program schedule to present, Mdingi showcased a collection that spoke of the relationship he shares with himself and the artisans he collaborates with. For the past two years, Mdingi has been working to source his woven textiles and knitwear from crafts communities in Burkina Faso, Somalia, and the Eastern Cape, and the collection featured textural and sartorial nuances paying homage to his being a young Black creative.
Garments were tailored from vibrant emerald ikat cloth, which suggested a perfect mix of nuance and style. Women’s tailoring included a suit with wide, cuffed pants in an ikat pattern, combining green and yellow checks with bold blue stripes. The collection also had textured knitwear, which included fringes, ponchos and patchwork shawls, matched with fine knit polo tops and dresses in zingy shades of yellow, lilac and pink, set off with graphic color-blocks and jagged stripes.
Mdingi, who grew up in the Eastern Cape, studied fashion design at Cape Peninsula University Technology, and soon after became a name to watch, when he was named a finalist in the ELLE Rising Star Design Awards.
OkayAfrica spoke to him about his ever-evolving brand and making his debut at Paris Fashion Week.
Interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tell us about your debut in Paris -- how did it go for you?
Incredible and very important. Haha! And I’m honestly still making sense of it all to myself. It’s clear that there’s a renaissance of young emerging Black and brown skinned creatives, and I have recognized that this was an opportunity for myself and my fellow peers like Thebe Magugu, Priya Ahluwalia, and other extraordinary designers that I respect from a distance. There’s a resurgence that what we’re doing matters in the most incredible way. It is a form of representation, understanding your place in the world, and how people would see and be inspired by your achievements and milestones you’d reach as a person of color.
What was the inspiration behind the collection?
We want to create something very modern, but most importantly, bring visibility to the [craftspeople], which will essentially lead to some sort of social impact. So, the collection just expands on something we’ve done in the past, checking on ways we can grow from it. That is the premise and foundation of the collection: how we can work with these incredible craftspeople to show the world how crafts can live within the modern society. This season just expands on our story that has started and has been a part of our brand's DNA.
In building this collection, what were the best and challenging parts?
The exciting part would definitely be our works with the collaborators. I think I live in a particular way that’s based on community and building human relationships, and for me, the best moment was seeing how we can come together. I love the human networks that are involved around the clothes, even working with them here in Paris. It was incredible.
And to be quite honest, I think the challenging parts for me were things outside of my control, so they’re not things I try to deliberately change or complicate. Some of them are usually the internal dialogue that I have with myself, how I see the business and myself, the complicated backs and forths of why I’m doing what I’m doing. These are my biggest challenges. I’m carrying it, but it’s a different kind of weight.
Taking it back to 2021, how was to be a winner of the LVMH Prize?
I mean, it’s really incredible. I think being part of the LVMH Prize really causes a lot of visibility to entrepreneurs and young designers, and the reality is that each designer uses that platform and opportunity to explore potentials. It truly is incredible to have and be a part of that history, especially because it is one of the prominent awards in the fashion industry. It was an extraordinary thing, to be able to share with so many other amazing designers. I am super grateful for that.
How would you describe your brand, Lukhanyo Mdingi?
I’ve had so much time to really reflect on this, and as I’ve gotten older with the brand in steady progress, I’ve realized that the premise of who we are comes down to human beings and human connections, and how we have expanded our work, which is very reliant on collaborative projects. This is predominantly done through crafts, more than anything else, because textiles, fabrics and designs are essentially a huge part of our label. What we’ve also realized is that crafts has become a huge part of our brand's DNA, and we are in a fortunate position to position and align ourselves with different communities in places like South Africa, Burkina Faso, Ghana, and so on.
At Lukhanyo Mdingi, we have also tried to use this design entrepreneurship as a vehicle to make social trends and social impact within these particular groups. That’s how we kind of shuffled the paradigm where our label is not necessarily about these beautiful well-made clothes, but is really just about the human beings behind the craft, and to see how we can add value to their lives through craft, designs, and textile development.
For his Bodyland collection, Lukhanyo Mdingi aimed to bring visibility to the craftspeople he worked with, in the hopes of creating social impact.Photo: La Fédération de la Haute Couture
Most times, entrepreneurs who go on the route of influencing and elevating smaller communities do this from a place of personal experience. Did you grow up as part of a smaller community? Why is doing this important for you?
I agree, and the reality is that we’ve all had our particular conditions as we grow up, and I think from my childhood, I grew up in a household filled with kids and women, and that community in itself has really shaped who I am today -- as a Black man coming from a space or group where we are constantly marginalized. I know what it’s like not to be seen or heard. I’ve experienced and felt it. I, therefore, tried to make that experience more apparent within my work, and the values that I put on the relationship I have with this community of women that are coming from the same space that I did.
And can I just say that I have never answered that before, and I just realized that it’s something I am still trying to make sense of myself, but I’ve never been so honest about how the shaping of my childhood has penetrated my life in such a way where it’s informed the way I move with work, and how I’m using my gifts as a way to channel all of the past baggage and trauma.
Appreciate you for sharing this with us. We have seen Lukhanyo Mdingi as a brand, but who is Lukhanyo as a person, outside of the brand?
I want to say that the brand is informed by my own personality. It is something that is incredibly layered, and to even give an elevated pitch of what the brand represents reflects some kind of effects of who I am. I’m direct, but also not direct; I’m complicated, but also not complicated. I like to be incredibly private. You know what I mean? If a person really, therefore, wants to understand who I am, they really just need to pay attention to the trajectory of the brand, mainly because it is informed by my own personal feelings as to how I see myself or how I see the world.
For his Bodyland collection, Lukhanyo Mdingi aimed to bring visibility to the craftspeople he worked with, in the hopes of creating social impact.Photo: La Fédération de la Haute Couture
