Kyla-Rose Smith

Musician

Kyla-rose Smith is an acclaimed performer, violinist, and multimedia artist. She is best known for her work with Freshlyground, South Africa's premier Afropop band. She has toured extensively inside and beyond South Africa with Freshlyground, who have garnered many awards including seven South African Music Awards (SAMA), an MTV Europe Award, and four METRO, and collaborated with Shakira on the FIFA 2010 World Cup Song and subsequent global chart topper, Waka Waka (This Time for Africa). Kyla was also a recipient of the Glamour Woman of the Year Award 2011. As a member of South Africa's top touring band Kyla has developed a keen interest in the art of performance and how musicians interact with their audience through the medium of sound and music, while bridging cultural divides. Her current projects engage with aural and visual dimensions of contemporary society. She is the co-artistic director and artist facilitator of Hear Be Dragons, a sound mapping project and community based artistic exchange program. Hear Be Dragons aims to get urban communities thinking about sound and the city and the way these influence our quality of life, perceptions of history and memory, and notions of identity. Kyla is currently working with Brooklyn based artist collective Found Sound Nation on a number of projects and installation including The Dome at this years TED Conference - a multi person instrument and immersive sound installation and heading up their non-profit record label Found Sound Studios

Music. Performance. Food. Sound and our sonic environments. Books, words, knowledge. Storytelling. Youth. Dancing.