It’s in the bag:
Sun-El Musician,
the artist whose
real name is
Sanele Sithole,
says he’s living
with the strange
emotional
whiplash of
finishing an
album. Photo:
Supplied
A few days before the release of his new album, Sun-El Musician sounds like a man suspended between exhaustion and exhilaration.
“Yeah, actually, it’s all of the above as a creative,” the artist whose real name is Sanele Sithole tells me when I ask if he’s feeling excited or nervous. “I think you get to a space where you’re just like over the whole thing. It’s because it’s a lot of work. But there is some excitement just for people to hear the songs for the first time.”
It’s an honest answer. After four years without a full-length project, Under the Sun arrives on Friday February 13 as both a return and a reset. A 17-track Afro-house offering released through his own label, Under Da Sun, the album brings together a formidable constellation of collaborators; from Nasty C and Deborah Cox to Msaki, Youngr, Manana, Mnqobi Yazo and a new generation of emerging voices.
But right now, in the quiet before release, he’s living with the strange emotional whiplash of finishing an album.
“I’ve loved some of these songs and I hate some of them now,” he laughs. “And until I give it out to the people and then I fall in love back again. So it’s kind of a weird place to be in right now. So, yeah, I’m kind of all over the show, really.”
“Plus I’m a perfectionist, so I keep tweaking until they’re out,” he says. “As a matter of fact, even when they’re out, I’ll still be like, should have done this to that part. So it’s just like a never ending process of just trying to make it sound better, I guess.”
There is relief, though, in surrender. “That love and hate until you give it to the people and then they go crazy. Like, okay, I need to let go.”
Letting go has been a long time coming.
Although his debut Africa to the World (2018) and its successor To the World & Beyond (2020) were certified Platinum and African Electronic Dance Music followed in 2021, he could have released something much sooner. The songs were there. The demand was there. But the feeling wasn’t.
“I could have released an album a long time ago,” he says. “But I felt like I wasn’t feeling anything around all that time and I was going through this newness that I’m actually just like embarking on now.
“So at that time, I just felt like it was going to be just like an album made by a machine if that makes any sense where I could have just put a bunch of songs together and just got it out. I felt like I needed to go through a certain emotion or just a feeling like that’s where I’m at right now.”
Under the Sun is, in that sense, an album born of timing. Some of the tracks are years old, others are recent. “It’s always like that when you’re working on an album anyways,” he says. “There’s songs that won’t make the cut on this album. Maybe they could work in the next two years or next year or this year later. It’s just always those. I guess it’s a timing thing.”
Timing and instinct have long defined Sun-El’s approach. Since his earliest releases, he has resisted fitting neatly under genre umbrellas. Afro-house may be enjoying a global surge but he refuses to chase trends.
“Afro House is really just becoming like a very cool space right now,” he says. “But it’s always been there. I don’t necessarily feel like that [pressure] because I’m always trying to make something fresh, new.”
Sometimes even he struggles to categorise his work.
“Sometimes when I look at some of my songs, I don’t even know if I can put them under the Afro House umbrella but I can put them under the dance space,” he says. “I’ve always not been a person who was kind of feeding into certain spaces since my first single. So it’s always just been, I guess it was just like I was just trying to find newness all the time.”
Newness, for him, often begins with people. Under the Sun is as much about collaboration as it is about sound. Alongside established stars are emerging artists whose names may be unfamiliar; for now. Sun-El has built a reputation for spotting something before the rest of us do.
“There’s always this little special thing,” he says of discovering new voices. “Maybe they could be just singing in a very different way. They have a very different, unique voice that I’ve never heard before.”
He is drawn to what doesn’t quite fit. “I always liked unique voices so it just feels fresh when it’s introduced, which is very risky. It’s such a hard journey but it’s beautiful. And I just love going through those challenges,” he says. “Can I work with this person? Can I make an Afrikaans song, you know, sound cool to a person who’s never even heard Afrikaans?”
Even when working with major names, his process remains rooted in connection. “We firstly have to connect and talk about stories,” he says. “How you grew up or whatever. Just finding a way to connect just as human beings first.”
And once they step into the studio? “Yes, it can be very scary having somebody who’s very big in their career. But once I’m in the studio, it just switches up everything because I’m in my world now. I’m like, okay, I’m in control now.”
With Nasty C, he recalls simply immersing him in the sound. “I just made him listen to it. Just like a bunch of just, like, crazy stuff. I was like, yeah, I don’t know what to call it either. But it’s my sound.”
The Covid-19 pandemic reshaped some of this process, forcing remote exchanges. But even then, his aim remained the same: “My approach is to always create a world where it’ll be comfortable for you to express yourself easily so you can feel vulnerable enough for you to express yourself.”
That vulnerability threads through the album’s themes. Take Music, a collaboration with Nasty C, Lorine Chia and Touchline.
“It’s actually a song that Lorine and I worked on remotely,” he says. “She sent me stems and stuff and I worked on it. And then it’s been sitting in my archives for like four years.”
When Nasty C heard it, something clicked. “He liked it and loved the message because we had talked about the whole journey of going to the US and then kind of not really getting the whole vibe and then coming back home just feeling like you didn’t give it your best or something like that.”
Other songs challenge him linguistically and culturally. Muloro marks his first venture into Venda. “Why does it feel like they’re not a part of SA much?” he wonders. The track is down-tempo, a deliberate contrast to his high-energy catalogue.
“Monna Hela is my first Setswana song,” he adds with pride. “I’m so proud of those lyrics because I just felt like I didn’t want it to be too serious. Luckily, I had different folks who are from Botswana who kind of were guiding me.”
The album’s intro, Ilembe featuring Mnqobi Yazo, was initially composed for the Shaka series. “It was solely meant for the Shaka Series Season 2,” he says. “But they had said to us, we still get to keep the masters. So I was like, okay, let’s put it on the album.”
If Under the Sun feels expansive, it’s because Sun-El’s world has expanded too. Before South Africa fully embraced him, Botswana did. “The funny part is the first country that embraced me was Botswana before South Africa,” he says. “I did a lot of trips to Botswana. At some point, the guys that were booking me there were like, ‘I think you should just get a house and a wife. It’s done.’”
Kenya followed. “I would love for anyone who makes music to experience Kenya at least once,” he says. “That’s how crazy and beautiful those people are and how they receive music. Whether you’re known or unknown, they don’t care. You just need to play something that they like.”
Watching audiences sing along to IsiZulu lyrics they didn’t fully understand affirmed his melodic instincts. “They’re singing along. Vibing all the way, you know, because it’s just following the melody,” he says. “It needs to be super hooky. From start to finish, the instruments to lyrics and everything needs to be a hook.”
From Zambia to Mozambique, London to New York, he has learned that big cities, powered by the internet, often catch new sounds first. “I was just like, I’m learning so much as everything was just happening.”
Now, as Under the Sun prepares to enter the world, he stands at what he calls “chapter two.” “This is my label. This is when I’m starting my own journey, which is chapter two,” he says.
“Chapter one was where I had signed artists and everything. But this time around, I’m just independent. I’m just doing my own things. I’m starting my own shows. Hopefully they turn into festivals.”
But first, the music. “Firstly, we have to start with the album,” he says. “Obviously, the music always just has to lead to the whole vibe and then it’s just the rest will just follow.”
Under the Sun arrives not as a calculated commercial move but as the sound of a man who refused to release an album until he felt something real. It carries the fingerprints of years; archived ideas, new languages, old friendships and global stages.Right now, he is somewhere between love and hate, fatigue and anticipation. Soon, the songs will belong to the people. And if history is any guide, he will fall in love all over again.
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