Asher Gamedze
is a cultural worker based in Cape Town, South Africa working mainly as a musician, writer, organizer and an educator. His work as a musician is primarily as a drummer with various ensembles across and between musical traditions of improvised and free music, Pop, Rock, Hip-Hop and Soul. He has performed across Southern Africa, USA and Europe. Some of the artists and ensembles with whom he has played include Xhanti Nokwali, Manny Walters, Nduduzo Makhathini, Angel Bat Dawid and many others. His debut album as a bandleader, Dialectic Soul, (On the Corner Records, July 2020) was released to critical acclaim, achieving #4 on the New York Times "Best Jazz albums of 2020" list, the "Best Traditional Jazz Album" at the Mzantsi Jazz Awards in 2021 amongst many others. As a writer and a researcher, his interests include African history, histories of revolutionary thought and practice, black cultural production, and radical pedagogy. His written work has been published in online popular and news forums, academic journals and independent activist publications. He is part of The Interim which is an autonomous collective in Cape Town for radicalizing cultural work.