Sense Of Place, South Africa: Sol Gems

For our latest installments of the series Sense of Place we're exploring two cities in South Africa: Johannesburg and Cape Town.

We started our trip off in Johannesburg, which is the economic hub of the country. (Think skyscrapers, a fast pace of life and a sense of energy — and sometimes danger.) The city still feels the lasting effects of apartheid, with the much poorer township of Soweto nearby. Both are a sharp contrast to the city 900 miles to the south we would later visit, the more laidback – and maybe more beautiful – Cape Town.

In this session, you'll hear a psychedelic band from Jo'burg - as the locals call it – a group named Sol Gems that regularly travels between the two cities' psychedelic rock scenes.

Formed in 2014, Sol Gems released its first full-length last year, and made an international impression playing at the Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona, as well as garnering some blogger love here in the U.S. Born after apartheid, they tell us about how the "born-free generation" — those who came into the world after the end of apartheid in 1994 — views South African politics.

But before we get to that, here is a set of live music, beginning with the song "Love Someone."

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.