For Your GRAMMY® Consideration
from South Africa:
Desert Air
Sharon Katz & The Peace Train
featuring Afrika Mamas
Listen now:
*Best Global Music Album: Desert Air
Sharon Katz & The Peace Train feat. Afrika Mamas
*Best Global Music Performance: “A Place I Call Home”
Sharon Katz & The Peace Train feat. Afrika Mamas
*Best Music Video: “A Place I Call Home”
Sharon Katz & The Peace Train feat. Afrika Mamas
Best Global Music Performance and Best Music Video:
”A Place I Call Home”
“… true world music is made by artists who, whilst they might be based in a certain style, place, culture, or tradition, allow their music to wander the globe and cross genre boundaries to create something truly of the world, in the fullest sense.
Desert Air, the new album from Sharon Katz & The Peace Train, is the perfect example of what I am talking about… music that feels open, adventurous, and genuinely borderless, proving that the most interesting journeys often happen when different musical roads meet.”
Listen now:
Listen to Desert Air on your Favorite Streaming Platforms on HearNow.com
“Born from South Africa’s turbulent transition out of apartheid and carried around the world ever since, Sharon Katz & The Peace Train have always treated collaboration as both musical language and philosophy. The result is wonderfully organic: warm, percussion-rich, and driven by musicians who sound less like assembled contributors than a band genuinely responding to one another.
Desert Air feels worldly without ever feeling calculated. Its cultures and influences coexist naturally, held together by generous performances, irresistible rhythm, and an enduring belief in music as a meeting place. Our final verdict? Highly Recommended.”
Background
After Sharon’s band performed for Nelson Mandela’s first birthday party following his liberation from prison, Mandela asked Sharon Katz to do something bigger.
So to help him break through Apartheid’s barriers, Sharon wrote songs in many of South Africa’s languages and formed a 500-voice multiracial and multicultural choir to sing them.
Next, Sharon took her band and 150 members of the choir on a performance tour around the country by train, representing Mandela’s ideals of a New South Africa. Ladysmith Black Mambazo joined Sharon on this tour, and The Peace Train’s global music project was launched.
Since then, Sharon Katz & The Peace Train have released numerous albums; were recorded by Sting with Elton John, Tina Turner and Annie Lennox; and have performed across the world as Mandela’s cultural ambassadors including at New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, The Getty in L.A., and Carnegie Hall’s World Music Series.
When Miriam Makeba was finally able to return home from exile, she and Sharon performed her famous “Pata Pata” for all the people who had gathered to welcome her. On this new Desert Air album by Sharon Katz & The Peace Train, Afrika Mamas add the gorgeous harmonies that Miriam Makeba inspired.
Now with bases in 3 countries and a studio on the Baja peninsula of Mexico, Sharon Katz & The Peace Train’s Desert Air album showcases the musical collaborations of Sharon Katz’s distinctively South African guitar licks with the Afro-beat grooves from bassist Qhubekani Mthethwa and drummer Charles Boykie Mnomiya; the fluidity of Debbie Mari’s keyboards; the jazzy brass from David Church and George Mari; the Latin energy from Jan Jeffries; the soulful intonations from Wendy Quick; and the richly evocative harmonies from Afrika Mamas.
The trailer from multiple-award winning film about them, When Voices Meet, can be watched here: Trailer of When Voices Meet. The film in its entirety can be viewed on Amazon Prime or YouTube below:
Visit the Website for More: SharonKatz.com
More about the Songs on Desert Air:
Oh, Baby Baby
(Composed by Sharon Katz and Afrika Mamas)
Recorded in South Africa and Mexico, feat. South African a cappella group Afrika Mamas, it’s a tribute to friendship and loyalty. Drummer Charles Boykie Mnomiya’s signature drum style and breaks give the vibrant energy to this track.
“Oh Baby Baby makes that chemistry obvious immediately. Katz trades vocals with South African ensemble Afrika Mamas over a buoyant groove, while guitar, bass and percussion keep the track in almost constant motion. It is playful, affectionate, and enormously difficult to hear without tapping a foot or swaying along. ” –The Ark of Music
Sharon Katz, guitars and vocals; Afrika Mamas, vocals; Qhubekhani Mthethwa, bass; Charles Boykie Mnomiya, drums.
Recorded by Sibusiso Dust Nkosi, United Rhythms Studio, Durban, South Africa; and Sharon Katz, Grand Noise Studios, Todos Santos, Mexico
Someone To Love
(Composed by Sharon Katz)
”Whilst the core sound here is one of those chiming guitar lines and Afro-beat groove recognizable as the sound of their South African homeland…’Someone to Love’ develops those ideas…through the addition of buoyant brass stabbing and soaring and swooning…at this point you appreciate the strength of the band’s engine room.”
– Dave Franklin
Sharon Katz’s mbaqanga-infused guitar drives this township jive style song featuring David Church on saxophone. It’s a love song, but Sharon throws in a surprise lyric about that special “someone.”
Sharon Katz, guitar and vocals; Qhubekani Mthethwa, bass; Charles Boykie Mnomiya, drums; Debbie Mari, keyboards; David Church, saxophone
Recorded by Sibusiso Dust Nkosi, United Rhythms Studio, Durban, South Africa; and Sharon Katz, Grand Noise Studios, San Diego, CA, USA and Todos Santos, Mexico
Desert Air
(Composed by Sharon Katz and Wendy Quick)
The Afro-jazz mood of this title track will have you swaying in the breeze as Sharon Katz and Wendy Quick invoke the gifts of Mother Earth to be preserved. South African Debbie Mari’s keyboards bring the Afro-jazz feel. Inspired by the natural surroundings of Sharon’s studio in Mexico, the song also features the influences of Sharon’s global journeys.
“Desert Air brings South African rhythmic foundations into conversation with jazz, rock, folk, and the musical colors Katz has gathered through years of travel.” – The Ark of Music
Sharon Katz, guitars and vocals; Wendy Quick, vocals and spoken word; Qhubekhani Mthethwa, bass; Charles Boykie Mnomiya, drums; Debbie Mari, keyboards
Recorded by Sibusiso Dust Nkosi, United Rhythms Studio, Durban, South Africa; and Sharon Katz, Grand Noise Studios, Todos Santos, Mexico
So Free
(Composed by Sharon Katz, Jan Jeffries, and Afrika Mamas)
Sharon Katz’s unique guitar style and vocals about the philosophy of Ubuntu are a melodic call to take a stand for kindness and fairness. Afrika Mamas feature with their Zulu lyrics calling for personal freedom. Percussion and drums by Jan Jeffries drive this piece, calling for us to never give up.
“…those lush African choral voices…its rhythmic heart beats just as strongly to a Latin vibe, a reminder that this is globe-trotting music.” –Dave Franklin
Sharon Katz, guitars & vocals; Afrika Mamas, vocals; Jan Jeffries, drums and djembe
Recorded by Sibusiso Dust Nkosi, United Rhythms Studio, Durban, South Africa; and Sharon Katz, Grand Noise Studios, Todos Santos, Mexico
A Place I Call Home
(Composed by Sharon Katz and Afrika Mamas)
“The collection’s most evocative moment arrives with ‘A Place I Call Home.’ Its spacious arrangement and layered harmonies capture something familiar to anyone who has spent enough time moving between places: the strange relationship between travel, belonging, and the idea of home itself.” – The Ark of Music
This song is the traveling musician’s challenge, and this moving track will get you hitting that next highway or dirt road.
Sharon Katz, guitars and vocals; Afrika Mamas, vocals; Qhubekhani Mthethwa, bass; Charles Boykie Mnomiya, drums
Recorded by Sibusiso Dust Nkosi, United Rhythms Studio, Durban, South Africa; and Sharon Katz, Grand Noise Studios, Todos Santos, Mexico
Turn The Page
(Composed by Sharon Katz)
“…a natural meeting point between Western songwriting and South African roots… musical conversation and a shared musical language… certainly broadens musical potential, and never was this truer than here among the mellifluous musical mixes of Desert Air.“
— Dave Franklin
Qhubekani Mthethwa’s bass accompanies you along a new journey as Sharon Katz’s distortion guitar, George Mari’s flugelhorn, the Zulu maskanda bridge, and the lyrical verses urge us to break out of what is expected of us.
Sharon Katz, guitar and vocals; Qhubekhani Mthethwa, bass; Jan Jeffries, drums; Debbie Mari, keyboards; George Mari, flugelhorn
Recorded by Sibusiso Dust Nkosi, United Rhythms Studio, Durban, South Africa; and Sharon Katz, Grand Noise Studios, San Diego, CA, USA and Todos Santos, Mexico
Produced by Sharon Katz and Sibusiso Dust Nkosi
Mixed and Mastered by Sibusiso Dust Nkosi, United Rhythms Studio, Durban, South Africa
© Tando Rhythms Records and Tando Rhythms Publishing, 2026