Delgres, a French band Named after an anti-Ssavery freedom fighter, are one of the groups set to appear at Womad Aotearoa 2025.
Delgres, a French band Named after an anti-Ssavery freedom fighter, are one of the groups set to appear at Womad Aotearoa 2025.
A Palestinian/Jordanian electronic group, a Cuban cellist and Kiwi favourite indie band The Beths are all set to grace the stage at Womad Aotearoa next year.
The rebrand of Womad New Zealand into Womad Aotearoa was made official at the festival’s programme launch on Wednesday night this week, accompanied bythe unveiling of 13 new artists lined up for next year’s event.
It was the second line-up announcement for the World of Music, Arts and Dance festival, which will take place in Taranaki’s Bowl of Brooklands in March next year.
The newly announced acts will join the already announced Queen Omega from Trinidad and Tobago, UK’s Nitin Sawhney, Australia’s Naarm/Melbourne-based Amaru Tribe and Aotearoa’s The Veils, featuring Finn Andrews and the NZTrio.
The line-up features artists spread across the globe, from Aotearoa to Palestine, Cuba to Niger with the acts announced so far coming from six of the globe’s seven continents.
Their music ranges from traditional to contemporary, classical to electronic and desert rock to folk, as well as covering pop, samba and plenty more.
Palestinian musical collective 47Soul began in Jordan in 2013, with Tareq Abu Kwaik, Ramzy Suleiman, Walaa Sbait and Hamza Arnaout who used the phrase Shamstep to describe their music.
Palestinian musical collective 47Soul are bringing their Levantine genre of electronic dance music to the Womad Aotearoa stage in March next year.
The name Shamstep refers to a Levantine genre of electronic dance music, combining the traditional form of Dabke music and other Shaa’bi roots music with modern electronic instruments. Dabke music is a traditional folk dance and music genre from the Levant region of the Middle East, that includes Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria. The music has a fast-paced, upbeat rhythm.
47Soul released their debut EP, named Shamstep, in 2015, and in doing so coined the genre’s name and claimed a place in music history as the trailblazers of the Shamstep music movement.
More musical fusion will be on the Womad Aotearoa stage in 2025 from Who Shot Scott, the musical brainchild of Tāmaki Makaurau rap artist/producer Zaidoon Nasir.
The Iraq-born artist blends Middle Eastern sounds with hip-hop and punk rock. He and his family fled Iraq when he was just 2 years old, living in Moscow before he and his mother settled in Aotearoa where he has built a strong reputation for himself in the music scene with his soul-baring lyrics combined with electrifying distorted guitars, drum beats and high-energy sounds.
Emotive songwriting is something Cuban cellist and composer Ana Carla Maza is well known for, and she will be bringing that along with her soulful cello playing to Womad Aotearoa in March next year. Born in Cuba to jazz musician parents, she mixes classical jazz with Latin American rhythms.
French power trio Delgres will also be blending musical genres at next year’s festival, with their music well-known for adding Caribbean influences to the blues. The group are based in France, but their lyrics are mostly sung in Creole with lyrics that often tell stories influenced by lead singer Pascal Danae’s family history. His ancestors were enslaved on the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, a history that the group’s name is a nod to. They are named for Louis Delgres, a leader of the movement in Guadeloupe resisting reoccupation and thus the reinstitution of slavery by Napoleonic France in 1802.
They made it onto Barack Obama's summer playlist last year, and next year they are part of the Womad Aotearoa 2025 artist line-up.
Multi-award-winning, Aotearoa-based the Beths are likely to be a big drawcard for festivalgoers, with their single Watching The Credits famously getting the attention of former US President Barack Obama, with a spot in his 2023 summer playlist. New Zealand indie rock band were also crowned best group at this year’s Aotearoa Music Awards.
The 13 new acts announced last night are:
47Soul (Palestine/Jordan)
Ana Carla Maza (Cuba)
Bala Desejo (Brazil)
Black Comet (Aotearoa)
CHAII (Aotearoa)
Delgres (France/Guadeloupe)
Etran de L’Aïr (Niger)
Goran Bregovic & his Wedding Funeral Band (Bosnia/Herzegovina)
Satish Vyas & U Rajesh (India)
Talisk (Scotland)
The Beths (Aotearoa)
Ukulele Death Squad (Australia)
Who Shot Scott (Aotearoa/Iraq)
Womad Aotearoa is at New Plymouth’s Brooklands Park and Bowl of Brooklands March 14-16, 2025.
Ilona Hanne is a Taranaki-based journalist and news director who covers breaking and community news from across the lower North Island. She has worked for NZME since 2011.
