By Jeoffrey Mukubi
RMB Song Night has evidently grown from strength to strength since its inception in 2011, and the hundreds of Song Nighters can be living testimonies to how the free platform has developed them and help produce their brands.
Over the past ten years, singers from all 14 regions of Namibia were sought after by Song Night and always managed to sing their hearts out every time they stepped on stage.
According to the founder of Song Night Lize Ehlers, the structure of Spoken Word for poets and Free Your Mind for comedians created the need for new singers to get more than just a free professional stage with lights, sound and a technician.
It offered singers instrumental backing tracks they could perform with, a piano player for the singers who wanted to create their own acoustic version of a song as well as a vocal coach and an opportunity that launched a thousand other opportunities.
“We offered a night where preparation, nerves, music, audience and an unforgettable experience meet to build a singer from the foundation up.” Lize Ehlers said.
In 2013 Song Night decided that if one had already performed on the song night stage then they could only perform with an original song if they plan to grace the stage again.
Singers like Slickartie from the Ells, Priscilla The Namibian Dessert Queen, Bradley Anthony – The Falsetto King, Miss H, Khoes (Nesindano Namises), Bianca Heyns, Zikii, Treza, Frans Marti, Chris B, Nashawn, Mhudi, Alvara and many more, made use of this platform to create and cultivate their sound and brand.
The initiative quickly realized that it needed to focus on more than just singing and added performance education while putting on a show that will create memories for a lifetime and carving a strong sound into a fairly new industry.
The platform understood that singers needed to perform more in order to gain experience and exposure. Song Night then added agency to the platform and booked artists to perform all across Namibia at paying events.
However due to the pandemic in 2020 Song Night finally made their online debut world with HEC, offering online shows that featured singers like Gigi Has Arrived, Rencha, Nasim, Alex, Niilo, Arthur, Zikii, Galilei, Melissa, Desire, Mikiros and Le Roi, which garnered more than 25 000 viewers.
