In this fascinating conversation, Black Coffee, the acclaimed South African DJ and producer, shares his journey from local talent to global superstar. He discusses overcoming barriers in the music industry and reshaping perceptions of Africa on the world stage. Reflecting on his life-changing experience during Nelson Mandela's release, he highlights the importance of presentation and discipline in his rise. Black Coffee also offers advice to emerging artists, encouraging them to stay true to their vision despite external pressures.
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insights INSIGHT
Presentation Shapes Global Credibility
Global success required Black Coffee to change both his sound and his visual presentation.
He intentionally refined fashion, speech and stage presence as his brand scaled.
insights INSIGHT
Misrepresentation Creates Extra Barriers
Black Coffee argues Africa is systematically misrepresented, even visually on globes and online images.
This distorted view creates additional barriers and forces Africans to work far harder for recognition.
question_answer ANECDOTE
BET Ceremony Exposed Segregation
At the BET Awards Black Coffee and other African winners received awards on a separate Friday ceremony and were excluded from the main televised show.
He used that experience to highlight structural bias in how African artists are slotted into separate categories.
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A DJ from South Africa who survived a life-altering accident on the night of Nelson Mandela’s release, Black Coffee has gone on to headline the world’s biggest stages. At BoF VOICES 2025, he reflected on building global credibility — and on reshaping how the African continent is seen.
“If you Google a picture of Africa … it’s not going to be the most positive picture you see,” he says. “To be a DJ in South Africa, it’s one of the toughest things because almost every DJ is amazing. To be a DJ on the global level is way tougher because I come from a continent that was — or maybe still is — not seen as how it truly is.”
In conversation with BoF founder and CEO Imran Amed, Black Coffee talk about rejecting pigeonholes, earning trust on a global level, and opening doors for the next generation.
Key Insights:
To compete beyond South Africa, Black Coffee says he had to work on the music and the optics of Africa on the global stage. The solution was rigorous self-presentation: “Whilst I was growing as a brand, fashion played a very big role for me. I was very conscious of how I presented myself,” he says. “The bigger the brand, the more intentional I was. It took a lot of work.” That mix of sound, style and discipline underpinned his transition from local star to international headliner.
The night Nelson Mandela walked free changed his life forever. Struck in a crowd by a taxi and left with a nerve damage injury, he channelled his recovery into music and silence into resolve. “[Mandela’s] release from jail marked the beginning of a different journey for me, the first day of the beginning of Black Coffee,” he says. Speaking publicly about the accident only years later, he refused pity and insisted on being seen first as a musician with “passion and love for music.”
Black Coffee is blunt about structural bias. “At the Grammys, instead of giving Tyla a number-one pop award, they will create a new genre or category where it’s best African,” he says. Reflecting on his own experience at the BET Awards, he recounts: “We were all given our awards on Friday and we were not invited on the main show on Saturday.”
His advice to young creatives is simple and radical: “Just listen to your voice. That voice is the voice that will make you the greatest.” The mission is not only visibility but parity – moving African talent from a side-room to the main stage.
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