15 questions with…Sun-El Musician

Sun-El Musician has a huge fan base in his home country of South Africa, with tens of millions of Youtube views, but is on a mission to spread his brand of EDM across the world, even inventing a sub genre of it along the way – African Electronic Dance Music. We catch up with the man whose ambitions are as big as his setup is small. “I’m not one to have crazy things and just like my studio to be simple…”

With his latest album AEDM (African Electronic Dance Music), South African DJ and producer Sun-El Musician is on a mission to piggyback African sounds onto the global phenomenon that is EDM and help introduce some of his local sounds and vibes – and himself – to the world along the way. Already a huge artist on his home soil, he collaborated with Black Coffee and landed a double-platinum debut album for Africa To The World and went on to be nominated for three major South African Music Awards. All this from producing with just a smattering of hardware – mic, monitors, interface and Mac – and a diverse set of plugins. Well, who needs more than that these days…

1 Tell us how you got into music

Sun-El Musician: “Hi, my name is Sanele Sithole aka Sun-El Musician, born in a small town called Mooi River (Midlands) KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. I’m an electronic DJ/producer, singer, songwriter and entrepreneur. The how and why? I was a student at the University of Kwazulu-Natal majoring in electronics and science. Being unsatisfied with how far away this decision had taken me from the music, my attention began to veer more towards the campus parties where I could immerse myself in the world I knew could only last a few hours, before I’d have to return to living by the book. I saw the likes of DJ Tira, DJ Bongz and DJ Cindo among other DJs from Durban and that was the thing that made me realise that this is something that I want to do: to make people dance and feel good, and just make good music for people.