R&B has travelled a long way from the American musical traditions that gave the genre its name. Across Africa, artists have been interpreting their own languages, histories and musical instincts into it, creating versions of the genre that no longer need to sound like they came from somewhere else.
That sense of possibility runs through Nanette’s ambitions for South African R&B, particularly as the genre finds a wider audience.
She has been building her career within that shift. The Durban-born singer, songwriter and producer first drew attention with her self-written and self-produced debut album "Bad Weather" in 2022, before expanding her sound through collaborations with artists including Kelvin Momo, Blxckie, Nasty C and Tellaman.
The debut album was followed by "The Waiting Room" in 2024 and "Painfully Happy" in 2025. The latter was an intimate project shaped by the grief of losing her aunt, relationship heartbreak and healing.
Speaking to "The National", she discusses what those experiences revealed about African R&B, the Lagos songwriting camp that produced her song "Taking Me Places" from the deluxe project, the growing role of women in music production and what she hopes to make possible for the artists who follow her.
Songwriting
Its deluxe edition arrived after a period of movement that took Nanette outside South Africa for the first time, including trips to Kenya and Nigeria, where she worked with artists and producers from across the continent.
She made music in Nairobi, before travelling to Lagos in November after being invited to a Mavin Records songwriting camp.
The label, home to artists including Rema and Ayra Starr, gave her an opportunity to work alongside musicians from another part of the continent. The experience also arrived at a significant point in her personal life where she got to leave South Africa for the first time.
“I think the deluxe and the whole narrative, it was important for us to come back to it because it just felt like a part of my life had just been unlocked. There’s a power behind getting the opportunity to travel. You know, it really broadens your horizons to the rest of the world,” she said.
Travelling forced her to confront how much her world had changed. After spending much of her grief feeling unable to imagine life beyond the immediate pain, she found herself in new countries, meeting people, making music and experiencing moments of ordinary happiness again.
“I didn’t realise just how small my world was until I stepped out of it and I could see that there’s a bigger world for me to conquer out there,” she added.
Learning from grief
Along with this sense of expansion, she shared that "Painfully Happy" reflects the idea that happiness does not necessarily arrive only after pain has disappeared.
“Life is never going to be without pain. It’s never going to be without problems so we need to learn to celebrate it with the struggle.”
The idea has evolved with her. Nanette says grief has broadened her understanding of love and companionship beyond romantic relationships; teaching her that people can have very different ideas about what it means to love and be loved.
“The true essence of love and healing and all of that stuff and building these beautiful relationships with people is essentially taking your form or your concept of love and meeting each other in the middle,” she said.
There is also a new urgency in how she approaches life since losing loved ones. It has made time feel less distant for Nanette. She shared she no longer wants to leave things unsaid or postpone the ambitions she wants to fulfil.
“I don’t want to leave anything unsaid. I don’t want to leave anything up to confusion. Everything has to be said. Everything has to be done. All my dreams have to be achieved,” she says.
As the genre continues to travel across Africa, artists are increasingly making space for their own flair within it. Nanette does not see that process as a contradiction.
R&B’s roots
Speaking on that, she acknowledged R&B’s American roots, particularly its relationship with soul and gospel, but believes the genre was always likely to move beyond the place where it began.
“I personally believe this is the home of soul. Africa is definitely the home of creation,” she said, pointing to the continent’s history and the ways African artists are now leaving their own imprint on the genre.
That imprint can be heard in language and dialect, but also in instrumentation and production. African R&B does not have to sound less like R&B to sound African, she argues.
It can borrow from Western traditions while incorporating native instruments, local expressions and stories rooted in experiences that may be unfamiliar to listeners elsewhere.
“We’re all leaving that little bit of African soul and flair in the music,” she added.
The growing international appetite for African music, however, creates another tension. As artists find audiences outside their home countries, there can be pressure to make music that is immediately legible to listeners who may not understand the cultural references within it.
Nanette is also cautious of treating music as something that belongs neatly to a particular nation.
“I always say as well that eventually we’re going to need to step away from nationalising music. I don’t believe that there’s South African R&B, but I try to think of it as it’s just R&B because at the end of the day, music is a global language.”
The 24-year-old singer’s opinion is less about abandoning cultural identity than refusing to let it become a set of restrictions. An artist can make music informed by where they come from without being expected to reproduce a prescribed version of that identity for an international audience.
Future of R&B
That viewpoint was tested in Lagos, where "Taking Me Places" came together during the Mavin songwriting camp. The song was reportedly completed and performed less than 24 hours after it was written.
The speed of the collaboration was less important to Nanette than what the room revealed about the artists working inside it. She found more similarities than differences between South African and Nigerian approaches to songwriting.
According to Nanette, some artists begin with melodies, others with lyrics. Some want to shape the production, while others prefer to arrive once the instrumental is already established. Some need an empty studio to create, while others can write and record in the middle of a crowded room.
“I always like to observe artists and their different creative processes. Everybody has their own process, but in those bubbles there’s actually a lot more similarities than differences.”
Collaborator, Mbryo shared a similar feeling about their time working together.
“Working with Nanette was such a beautiful experience. It felt seamless, like two inseparable friends creating art without borders or restraint. The moment we wrapped that session, we knew we had something special,” he said.
Claiming credit
Additionally, Nanette has become increasingly involved in production herself, but says women have not suddenly appeared in those spaces. What has changed is their willingness to claim credit for work they were already doing.
“We’ve never had a lack of women producers or women creatives. We’ve just had a lack of credit going to these women producers and women creatives,” she said.
She pointed to Mariah Carey as an example of an artist whose production role was often misunderstood because she was not necessarily the person physically playing the instruments.
She believes the industry still has work to do around credit, fair pay and recognition, but there is another change she would like to see: eventually removing the need to qualify creative roles by gender at all.
“I’d love for us to get to a space where the spaces that matter are driven by women,” she said.
That ambition feeds into what she wants her own career to make possible. Nanette sees African music entering a period in which the global conversation is becoming less centred on North America and more open to music emerging from different parts of the world.
South Africa, Brazil and other markets can increasingly participate in shaping what global music sounds like rather than simply responding to it.
Next step
“I see myself taking South African R&B, whatever that looks like, to the world. I’d love for R&B to reach a point where it’s competing with genres like amapiano and dance, profit-wise, lucratively and even event-wise,” she shared.
She points to the success of women such as Shekhinah as evidence that an audience for R&B exists and can grow when artists continue to invest in the genre.
Nanette’s trajectory has already taken her from "Bad Weather" to "The Waiting Room" and "Painfully Happy" , while collaborations and international songwriting rooms continue to widen the scope of what she considers possible.
The next stage is not simply about taking South African R&B abroad, but helping create possibilities for the artists who follow her to move further.
“I want to take South African R&B and essentially just South African soul, the essence of who we are as a people, if I can find a way to translate that into my music and take it to the world, then I would have done my job.”
nomathamsanqa.sithathu@nationalmg.co.za