Airs: Thursday 9:00AM

Category: Documentary

Cast:

Southern Rhythms centres around South Africa's multi-instrumental, musician and producer Pops Mohamed as he embarks on a journey of discovering South Africa's abundant and varied sacred music.

The series celebrates our rich and diverse spiritual and religious communities through performances by leading indigenous and sacred musicians and interviews with artists, scholars and other experts.

It is presented as a first person narrative journey by world reknowned jazz muso Pops Mohamed, who embarks on a journey of discovery of South Africa's abundant and varied sacred music, visiting the various provinces and a spectrum of religious and indigenous communities, engaging them in their environment.

The series is aimed at exploring South Africa's unity through the diversity of music, religion and culture as well as celebrating our rich and diverse spirituality through performances by leading musicians, interviews with artists, scholars and other experts.

Pops' journey includes taking a look into the sacred sounds of some of the multifaceted traditions that make up our diverse nation. We witness him at home, in his studio and on stage, and explore how he proposes to integrate the musical experiences he has into a larger, and even more creative vision.

Pops Mohamed has been leading the battle to retain the indigenous African sounds so they are not overrun by the American pop sounds and on his quest has been joined by numerous African legends including jazz great Moses Khumalo.

Pops attributes his artistic openness to his childhood growing up in an Indian community near Johannesburg.

His nickname Pops dates back to his childhood enthusiasm for the comic seaman Popeye. The prolific and multi-talented South African singer songwriter Pops Mohamed has been attracting international attention for almost two decades for his effortless versatility on in playing traditional and for his ability to fuse a startling scope of regional African styles with his elegant original compositions.

Pops also loves experimenting with the latest innovations in recording studio technology, always in the service of music. Before turning to traditional sounds, he played the keyboard with eminent jazz musicians "live" and in the studio.