Shishani Vranckx

Shishani Vranckx stagename Shishani (born December 7, 1987) is a Belgium-Namibian jazz singer, songwriter and cultural anthropologist. Her band "Namibian Tales" include San music influences.

Life
Vranckx was born in 1987 in the Namibian capital of Windhoek. Her elder brother Ernst Vranckx is also a musician. Her heritage is Belgian and Namibian although she spent her childhood mainly in the Netherlands, but she always wanted investigate her heritage from her Ndonga mother. She took her first degree studying anthropology at Leiden University and then went on to a master's degree in musicology.

In 2012 and 2013, she was competing in band competitions in Belgium and in Namibia and in the following year she was in the final of the Radio France International Discovery Award competition.

In 2015, she and Shahin During formed a musical group called The Namibian Tales to play the music of Namibia. They were joined by Debby Korfmacher and Bence Huszar from Germany and Hungary. The quartet's debut album Itaala was released in the following year and it was recognised as a "Best World Music Album" in the Netherlands by Mixed World Music. Writing the songs had been difficult because of their eclectic background. The final sound included Namibian music, Huszar's cello and the work they had done with San musicians. Vranckx worked with the San people as an anthropologist - they are one of the oldest surving cultures.

In 2019, she formed a band which they named Miss Catharsis. She identifies herself as a black queer woman and her new group excluded any white or male musicians.

The Dutch presenter Jan Douwe Kroeske introduced a live session of Miss Catharsis in June 2022.

In 2024, she was in Namibia where she and others had put together work based around a drum from Museum am Rothenbaum in Hamburg. The work finishes with an all-night show at the Goethe-Institut in Windhoek.