Lindie Lila is a singer songwriter and belly dancer, with a mystically soulful and delicately intimate style of music.
Music that recalls the breath of sacred mountains with all the heat of a middle Earth fire, stirring memories of an ancient ritual, soul shaping passion; an initiation into the unknown.
A singer “since birth”, Lindie Lila wrote her first proper song at the tender age of nine! On leaving school she studied Jazz at the Pretoria Technikon and it was here that she fell in love with the art of Middle Eastern Dance. After five years of studying dance, she graduated to teaching the art of belly dance, set up her own dance studio and began performing as a professional dancer. In this period she also started writing music extensively and in 2006 she traded her dancing career to become a fulltime singer songwriter. Together with Jason Tamba; a gifted musician from the Congo, she formed an acoustic folk band called Bayembi Spirit.
The band was a platform for Lindie Lila to expand her own repertoire whilst absorbing influence from her fellow musician’s West African style of music. In 2007 she incorporated a third band member into Bayembi Spirit - Ronan Skillen; a gifted Indian Tabla player and master didgeridoo percussionist. Lindie now shaped the band’s sound to be their own; rich in influences from West-Africa and the Middle East with a heady dash of New Age Folk thrown in just for good measure.
In 2006 Lila began production on her 2nd album. Jack Mantis stepped in as co-producer, sound engineer and song arranger with able musicians David Leadbetter, Ronan Skillen and Jason Tamba on instruments. Although not yet officially released, the CD entitled ‘Moondance’ had already sold 300 copies by January 2008.
In that same month, Lindie Lila became the first Middle Eastern Dancer in South Africa to dance to wholly South African made and produced music at the SA Belly Dance Festival held in Cape Town. It was also at this festival that she met Hettienne Grobler; a Priestess and Sacred Dance instructor, who asked Lila to compose the theme song for the forthcoming International Goddess Conference to be held in Franschhoek in the Cape in 2008. (This festival is similar to the annual Goddess Festival held in Glastonbury). This event began a whole new school of thought and new direction for Lila and became the inspiration to start her own music label and so Goddess Music was born. The label aims to be a welcoming home for other Goddess type music both locally and abroad.
Since 2005, Lindie Lila shared the stage with other notable South African acts the likes of DNA Strings, Jan Blom, Karin Zoid, Malaika, Arno Carstens, Mbongiseni Ngubane (Swazi singer songwriter), Mluleki Dlamini (Swazi pianist), Tsepho Tshola, Louis Mhlanga, Kunle Ayo and other Jazz greats. She has opened shows for Dozi, Gian Groen, Luna and many more.
In 2006 Lila toured the country with Jason Tamba and has appeared at many music festivals (including Innibos in Mpumalanga, Aardklop in Potchefstroom and K.K.N.K 2007) to great response, her combination of West-African, Middle Eastern and contemporary folk styles (sung in English, West-African, French and Afrikaans!), provides music that is easy on the ear and nourishing for the soul.
Lila devotes her time to furthering the awareness and growth of both World Music and acoustic music in South Africa and as of late 2007 is working on compositions for a new album called ‘Mama Gaia’ - music dedicated to the spirit of woman.
Song Info
Track Files
Song Likes
On
Playlists
