Building a home you can hear | Vuyo McGlad redefines Joburg’s live music scene

At just 26, Kwanda Tangweni — better known as Vuyo McGlad — is quietly reshaping how young South Africans experience music, culture, and community

As the founder of NarowBi and Kids Love Jazz, McGlad has created spaces that feel less like events and more like living rooms: warm, intentional environments where jazz, poetry, fashion and conversation coexist without hierarchy or gatekeeping.

“We start by asking: what do we want people to exhale into when they arrive?” McGlad explains. “Feeling becomes physical through the sound and intention. Lighting that feels warm rather than performative. Sound that wraps instead of overwhelms.”

NarowBi, founded six years ago, emerged from a sense of cultural displacement.

“It came from discomfort — feeling culturally homeless,” he says. “Loving things that didn’t always have a clear place in youth spaces, and not fully seeing myself reflected in existing platforms. Building NarowBi was a way of choosing belonging over waiting for permission.”

– Rewriting Access, Not Preserving Culture –

Both NarowBi and Kids Love Jazz challenge traditional notions of “high culture” in South Africa — often seen as exclusive, academic, or static.

“There was a gap between high culture and youth culture,” McGlad says. “Jazz, poetry and intentional listening were treated as inaccessible or outdated. We felt called to reintroduce these forms without apology or dilution.”

The result is an ecosystem that removes performance from participation. “No gatekeeping, no costume changes, no need to perform knowledge. Just presence,” he says. “We’re building spaces where culture feels lived-in, not preserved behind glass.”

This philosophy extends to how events are designed. Much of the work, McGlad notes, happens invisibly.

“Timing. How long an artist plays. When silence is allowed. How close the audience is to the performer. Even how staff greet people at the door,” he explains. “These choices decide whether people feel held or rushed.”

If audiences don’t consciously notice these elements, he believes, then the work has succeeded. “It means they’re fully inside the experience, not just observing it.”

– Jazz as a Living Dialogue –

Kids Love Jazz events honors the genre’s history — its ties to resistance, memory, and spiritual inheritance — while refusing stagnation.

“The dialogue is constant,” he says. “We honour jazz as memory, resistance and spiritual inheritance, but we refuse to freeze it. We let it breathe, flirt, joke, arrive late and sit next to sneakers and streetwear.”

“Respect doesn’t mean rigidity,” he adds. “Departure is how we keep the conversation alive.”

This approach has allowed jazz to flourish in unexpected ways, especially among younger audiences. And despite the platform’s playful name, McGlad answers the lingering question without hesitation: do kids really love jazz?

“Yes!” he says. “No doubt. They just love it when it’s alive.”

– Leadership, Softness and Sustainability –

Behind the scenes,  functions less as a brand and more as a collective, grounded in conversation and care.

“We talk. A lot. But more importantly, we listen,” McGlad says. “Our shared rituals — check-ins, post-event reflections, collective dreaming sessions — help us remember NarowBi is bigger than any one aesthetic or ego.”

That emphasis on care extends to how the team confronts burnout in an industry known for emotional exhaustion.

“The emotional cost is carrying people’s expectations while managing your own doubt,” he reflects. “Holding space while still needing space yourself.”

What keeps him grounded, he says, is ritual. “Debriefs. Silence. Music without purpose. And reminding ourselves that rest is not a reward — it’s a must.”

Sustainability, for McGlad, is not accidental. “We plan in seasons,” he explains. “Financially, we diversify. Creatively, we allow rest cycles. Emotionally, we normalise saying, ‘I’m tired.’ Burnout doesn’t mean failure — it means something needs adjusting.”

– Choosing Authorship Over Attendance –

The most defining moment for McGlad was realising he did not want to spend his life waiting for invitations.

“I realised I didn’t want to wait for rooms that weren’t built for me,” he says. “Creating NarowBi was choosing authorship over attendance.”

That choice reshaped his understanding of leadership — particularly as a young Black South African cultural builder.

“I’ve become more rooted. More patient. More aware that visibility is never neutral,” he reflects. “Leadership doesn’t require hardness. It requires clarity. And good things take time.”

The truth that took longest to accept, he says, was deceptively simple: “That softness is not weakness. Care, slowness and emotional honesty are strengths.”

– A Living Blueprint for the Future –

Looking ahead, McGlad sees NarowBi as cultural infrastructure — a safe space for artists, designers, and thinkers to experiment.

Beyond the present moment, his ambition is archival and structural. “We want to influence how African creative work is archived, funded and valued — shifting from moment-based culture to sustained ecosystems.”

And when asked about legacy, his answer is quietly radical.

“I hope NarowBi leaves a blueprint,” he says. “Proof that community-led culture can be intentional, sustainable and joyful. That future generations won’t have to explain why their work matters.”

As for his role in that future?

“Eventually,” McGlad says, “it’s to step back — and let the ecosystem outgrow me.”

Written by: Lebohang Ndashe