Jazz vocalist Tutu Puoane performs in Cape Town: 'No audience like a South African audience'

CapeTalk's Lester Kiewit speaks to Jazz vocalist and actress Tutu Puoane.

Listen below: 

Puoane grew up in the township of Mamelodi in Pretoria. Today, she is a powerful and celebrated voice on the global stage.

Realising her passion for singing, Tutu went on to study jazz vocals at the University of Cape Town with Jelena Reveshin and Virginia Davids and went on to receive Standard Bank's 'Young Artist of the Year' award in 2004 along with a scholarship to study in the Hague for a year.

Since then, the singer moved to Antwerp, Belgium, where she's lived for the past 22 years. "My physical body is in Belgium, but my heart and mind are stuck in South Africa," Puoane says.

Now, the singer's back in South Africa for her Wrapped In Rhythm tour, her award-winning double-album inspired by the poetry of Lebo Mashile. 

Puoane says she is happy to be back in Mzansi because 'there's no audience like a South African audience'.

"It's always amazing to be back home, there's no audience like a South African audience... It's really important to me that I come back and sing at home because it really feeds a part of my soul that I don't really get to feed in Europe..."

- Tutu Puoane, Jazz vocalist

"Joburg revitalises that young girl who was ambitious in me... every time I leave Joburg, I feel like nothing can stop me and I feel like I can do whatever's in my brain... You sit at a café in Johannesburg and you just watch and see all these young talented Black people just with all the odds against them making things happen, especially after COVID... Joburg has this vibrancy..."

- Tutu Puoane, Jazz vocalist

"The beauty of Cape Town... there's nothing compared to it. It truly takes your breath away..."

- Tutu Puoane, Jazz vocalist

Puoane explains what it's like performing in Europe versus South Africa.

"The biggest difference is funding. The biggest difference is government support... In Belgium, there's a pot of money for the arts and venues are subsidised. They get a budget for five years, which makes it possible for venues not to charge so much. To go see a concert in Belgium at a cultural centre, you don't have to ask a lot of money for the public to come in. That's really the biggest difference. And all these tiny little villages... every single one has a cultural centre with everything you need to put drama, music, comedy and everything you can think of..."

- Tutu Puoane, Jazz vocalist

"If corruption can be stopped and money can be given to subsidise venues, that will help a lot."

- Tutu Puoane, Jazz vocalist

Scroll up to the audio player to listen to the full conversation.