The music still lives in us long after it ended

IT’S been a full week since we stood shoulder to shoulder beneath red lights and ancestral drumbeats at the Cape Town International Jazz Festival. And still, it lingers. Not the hype. Not the Instagram stories.

- FAIEZ JACOBS

The feeling. The texture. The truth. It lives in our bones, in our softened chests and quiet thoughts. Because what we experienced at CTIJF wasn't just a festival. It was a collective remembrance. A necessary cleansing. A deeply Cape Town communion.

Where we began on Thursday, I attended the People’s Concert, the perfect prelude. It was warm, easy, full of hugs and long-overdue greetings. It felt like a homecoming. I hadn't seen many of my comrades and old friends in years. To reconnect, to feel, to breathe in that atmosphere it meant everything.

Friday night, April 25, began not just with the last rays of sun but with a shared energy, a readiness. Inside the CTICC, Lira gave us more than melody.

She gave us light. She gave us affirmation. Feel Good wasn't just a hit it was a permission slip to hold joy again. Let There Be Light became an invocation. And when she smiled, we saw our own resilience reflected back.

At Manenberg, Ramon Alexander Trio delivered a tight, rooted, unapologetically Cape set. He didn't perform for us he played with us. Ghoema rhythms echoed stories from the Flats, vinyls spinning on Sunday afternoons, laughter around mosques and kitchens. Ramon is familiar, a brother. I say this with deep respect and gratitude.

Then the energy shifted. Nubya Garcia took the Kippies stage like a spiritual warrior. Red backdrop. Braids. Sunglasses. Saxophone in hand. Yoh! Wow. She's young, fearless, and emotional ~ bringing power, technique, and ancestral echo into every note. She opened with Source and within minutes the room was spellbound. Her set wasn't smooth. It was alive diaspora longing and ancestral defiance braided into sound.

You don't dance to Nubya. You surrender. Malcolm Jiyane Tree-O followed and I need to speak honestly here. He didn't entertain. He made us uncomfortable in the most necessary way.