Bon Bon Vie, the alter-ego of Siviwe Ngani, is a Johannesburg-based DJ whose debut DJ mix, ‘Honne’,aims to be a true reflection of the sounds he enjoys. Having grown up all around Johannesburg, his childhood was filled with the sounds of MetroFM, with genres such as soul, rnb & kwaito featuring prominently. The end of primary school and early high school saw him discovering alternative hip hop and indie rock with groups such as N.E.R.D, Gorillaz and Coldplay all leaving their mark on him. Although he would only start DJing after high school, he had already developed a habit of sharing music with his friends, but it was once he started working that he really got a taste for curating music. “I would share music with friends throughout high school. So, organically I was already sharing music and I wanted to cultivate it a bit more. At the end of high school, I worked in retail and I created the playlist for the store that I worked for. Then I worked in marketing for a few years for youth culture agencies putting on experiences. Being exposed to youth culture and being that close to it I tapped into a new network of people where I put my hand up and [said, I] wanted to play.”
One of these networks was We Heart Beat, with whom Siviwe connected in 2015 and which would be the first platform where he would play a real set. “They used to have a residency at a place called Glory where they did a thing called In Tuneevery Friday and Saturday. It went from attending to being allowed to spin, that’s probably the first time I got to play.”
The name Bon Bon Vie, taken from French and meaning good, good life is meant to echo the smoothness that Siviwe aims to put into his sets. “I think French is a smooth, romantic language. I’ve always wanted to play sets that resemble the best part of the day which I think is sunset. So some soul, funk, jivey beats.” Heavily nostalgic, his sets aim to get people moving and harks back to a time when people were more carefree on the dancefloor. “I play more nostalgic sounds and then try to dig for renditions or remixes or different versions. It’s definitely more nostalgic or influenced by nostalgic sounds. Trying to find sounds that are a bit more modern but still mimic that or have that as their foundation. The idea is to play music to mimic that time when people were confident enough to get up and dance.”
His debut mix, ‘Honne’, is an introduction to the sounds that excite Siviwe, with the title referencing the Japanese concepts of ‘honne’ and ‘tatemae’ which distinguishes between one’s true self and the façade one puts on in public. “‘Honne’ is trying to get as close to what I want to play and what I want people to hear. Because you play a bit more, you get booked and you start to play what the people want. It shifts away from why you wanted to play. It took me about 6 months to put it together. It’s the closest reflection of my idea of music.”
From jazzy to soulful, funky to jivey, the sounds of Bon Bon Vie’s true self are sure to induce movement in even the most stubborn of listeners and harks back to a time when grooves were so infectious that one couldn’t help but dance.
