MonthatiMasebe

Monthati is an award-winning, internationally acclaimed composer based in the US. Over the last decade their music has grown exponentially across festival stages worldwide — including the Munich Biennale 2026, where they premiered their first opera, built on African indigenous instruments and traditional throat-singing choruses.

Being yourself, even if it means being unwanted, is the bravest act of rebellion in times of mass conformity.

Monthati wants to be the bold, unapologetic voice of resilience in a world where people like them have not always been welcomed. Across South Africa they are also widely known as an actor and queer advocate, pioneering non-binary representation through their role on the acclaimed drama Generations: The Legacy. Their range spans classical composition and electronic afro-ambience with live looping, with production skills that move fluidly through genres and styles you wouldn't traditionally expect. They believe true composition is the art of blending frequencies into stories that reach many different people in many different ways.

Monthati is also an African sound healer and Ubuntu Futurist, using indigenous instruments both musically and medically. Through Konke (un)Hidden, the art hive they founded, they turn research and scholarship into a collective imagination lab where untold African stories live and thrive, weaving their knowledge of African music, theoretically, historically and practically, into the way they write and bring artistic concepts to life.