Shishani Vranckx

Shishani is a talented singer-songwriter/ anthropologist/musicologist, with Namibian and Belgian roots who grew up in the Netherlands. In her songs, she tries to bring these worlds together.

She has a smooth and powerful voice and her style has been influenced by Afro-American and African music traditions, giving her a truly unique sound. Her music has a thread of strong social consciousness running through it, and she has performed for various causes at protests and benefits. Her song ‘Clean Country’ was the Campaign song for the Campaign Against Nuclear Waste in Namibia.

In Namibia, she has spearheaded various arts initiatives in Namibia focusing on social upliftment. She is a founder of ARTNAM; advocating for the promotion of Namibian arts.

Her song ‘Minority’ got two nominations at the Namibian Annual Music Awards, and she has won several awards, both locally and internationally. In 2013, she won the Amsterdam singer-songwriter music competition ‘Mooie Noten’ and she was the winner of Amsterdam TV Channel AT5 talent competition ‘Cultuur in de Stad’.

In her work as an anthropologist/ musicologist she has specialised in contemporary urban Namibian music. Currently, she is writing for the Bloomsbury Encyclopaedia of Contemporary Music of the World.

Vranckx is a speaker at Setting the Urban Agenda of Tomorrow on Wednesday, June 20.