Top 5: Unmissable acts to catch at WOMEX 24

Representing Manchester on the world stage, Rioghnach Connolly & Honeyfeet perform their very own sweeping sounds, marrying funk, big band, blues, and soul. Ríoghnach Connolly, Radio 2’s Folk Singer of the Year, provides vocals and flute, telling intimate stories amid the eclectic sounds of Honeyfeet. The Horizons Stage platforms the band, at home, to a worldwide audience, through the journey of this musical adventure.

Stogie T’s hard-hitting style of songwriting reflects a malaise prevalent in South Africa today, capturing the juxtaposing disillusionment with politics and a failing state with a stubborn optimism for change.

Stogie T came to the fore with his debut album in 2016 as the latest incarnation of Tumi Molekane, already a major figure in South African hip-hop since the 2000s with rap rock pioneers, Tumi and the Volume. Fast-forward to the present day, and he has established himself as a top-tier conscious poet, holding a mirror up to South African society, authentically based in the local while resonating with a global community.

Led by charismatic singer and percussionist Gladys Samba, the women’s collective, Les Mamans du Congo, came together in 2018 in Brazzaville as a project merging dance with ancient Kongo lullabies, singing in Lari language with rhythms beaten out with forks, plates, pestles and recycled objects.

An initiative of the Institut Français du Congo, La Coopérative de Mai and Jarring Effects label, introduced them to French hip-hop and electronic music producer Rrobin, creating an unlikely musical symbiosis which layered grime, drill and boom-bap over Congolese rhythms.

Poet, songwriter and performer of Maya descent, Sara Curruchich skilfully blends elements of her culture with cumbia, rock, reggae, son jarocho, and chacarera, applying her powerful voice to her socially committed lyrics sung in her native language, Kaqchikel, as well as Spanish.

Appointed as an ambassador for UN Women’s Fund for Gender Equality in Central America, Sara’s songs tackle issues of Indigenous struggle against racism and patriarchal oppression, calling on her own experiences of marginalisation to create messages of support for Latin America’s LGBTQ+ communities.

N’famady Kouyaté is a young master musician from Conakry in Guinea, based in Cardiff since 2019. His primary instrument is the balafon and his arrangements are a fusion of Mandingue African and Western European jazz, pop, indie and funk influences provided by an ever-evolving collective of musicians.

Within just two years of arriving in Wales he was recording his first EP, Aros I Fi Yna, in the legendary Rockfield Studios, with a full band lineup that included guest appearances from iconic Welsh songsmith Gruff Rhys, 9 Bach’s Lisa Jên Brown, and Kliph Scurlock of The Flaming Lips.

Guests can pick between 3-Night Festival Passes, 1-Night Festival Passes or 1-Night Venue Passes. 3-Night Passes will also include access to a special opening night concert at The Bridgewater Hall. For more information, or to book your tickets, click the button below.