Swansea Fringe funk night with Afrobeat and soukous acts N'Famady Kouyaté, Kasai Masai, Maryama Cham and Xempa, plus funk DJs.
Funk @ The Fringe returns to Down By Here on Friday 27 November, part of the 2026 Swansea Fringe. This year the night takes a distinctly Afrobeat turn, with four acts sharing the bill: N'Famady Kouyaté, Kasai Masai, Maryama Cham and Xempa.
N'Famady Kouyaté is a young multi-instrumentalist from Conakry, Guinea, who moved to Cardiff in 2019. You might recognise him from Gruff Rhys's Pang! album tour, where he played the balafon. Kasai Masai is a soukous band rooted in the musical traditions of the Congo, led by Nickens Nkoso. Maryama Cham is a Gambian singer, pianist and activist whose work blends acoustic performance with West African folklore. And Xempa is a genre-blurring Welsh collective that pulls from RnB, funk, hip-hop and rock.
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The venue is Down By Here on Swansea's historic High Street, a space that reopened in 2026 and books everything from Welsh folk groups and Afrobeat bands to poetry, comedy and cabaret. The night runs from 19:00 to 23:00, and it's followed by Fringe After Dark: Funked Up!, with South Wales's funk DJs playing vinyl into the early hours.
