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DADtv | AfrikaBurn 2025 Review | When the Beat Drops but the Spirit Doesn’t Rise

  • dadtvnet
  • May 5
  • 3 min read

Updated: 7 days ago

By Mum-z Posted on May 5, 2025



If you stood anywhere in Tankwa Town this year and closed your eyes, one sound dominated the air: Boom. Boom. Boom. Nonstop. Relentless. Monotone.

Welcome to the AfrikaBurn 2025 Techno Takeover — where music was loud, hard, and often emotionally flat. And for many longtime Burners, it felt like something sacred was missing.


The Rise of the Machines

Of course, AfrikaBurn has always welcomed electronic music. The festival's freedom and radical expression lend themselves naturally to DJs spinning under the stars. But this year, the sonic landscape felt overwhelmingly skewed — not just toward electronic music, but toward one narrow slice of it:

💣 Hard techno🚧 Industrial beats⚙️ Dark, relentless loops

Whether you were at a sunrise dance floor or stumbling home through the night, it seemed every camp and every art car was dialed into the same BPM. At times, the vibe felt less like a shared ritual — and more like a Berlin warehouse transplanted into the Karoo.


Where Did the Soul Go?

What happened to the guitar at golden hour?The quiet flute in the dust?The group of strangers harmonizing around a firepit?

What happened to music as medicine — not just stimulation?

There was a time when you could walk through Tankwa and encounter:

🎶 Live acoustic sets🌿 Deeply spiritual chanting🪘 African drums echoing into the sunset🎷 Horns and violins playing under art installations

But in 2025, many of those experiences were drowned out — literally — by the walls of bass coming from every major camp.


Burn Fatigue: When Every Beat Sounds the Same

Several festival-goers expressed that by Day 3, the music felt repetitive and emotionally numbing. “I love dancing, but I miss feeling something,” one veteran Burner shared.

The over-saturation of hard, formulaic techno risks turning the festival into a one-note party — rather than a diverse, multi-sensory journey.

And while there were moments of live brilliance (shoutout to the jazz trio at Camp Mirage and the surprise marimba circle at 3 a.m. near the Binnekring), they were rare, isolated pockets.


We Need Sonic Balance

AfrikaBurn is meant to be an expression of diversity — in people, ideas, art, and sound. A soundscape dominated by one genre, however popular, contradicts the festival’s open-source, co-created spirit.

To bring the heart back into the Burn, we need to make space for:

🌅 Morning meditative sets🎤 Live vocal performances🧘‍♀️ Ambient and spiritual music sessions🪕 Organic instruments and jam circles🇿🇦 Indigenous and African fusion sounds

Because the soul of the Burn isn’t in the subwoofers — it’s in the stories we tell through sound.


A Call to Musicians, Camp Leads & DJs

If you’re building a camp or curating music next year, ask yourself:

  • Are we offering a range of sonic experiences?

  • Is there a time for stillness, not just climax?

  • Are we making room for live, soulful, or experimental acts?

AfrikaBurn should feel like a desert opera, not just a rave in the sand.


Final Thoughts

AfrikaBurn is a place of beauty, challenge, and transformation. Music is its heartbeat. But if that heartbeat becomes too mechanical, we risk losing the magic that makes the Burn so much more than a party.

Let’s turn the volume down — and the feeling up.


💬 Did you miss the live and spiritual music at AfrikaBurn 2025? Or were you loving the techno trip? Drop your thoughts below.


 
 
 

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