As-Shams: A Journey Into the Sun

We are excited to welcome South African arts journalist, archivist and sound scholar, Atiyyah Khan for a sonic lecture on her latest zine titled A Journey into the Sun. The zine documents the story of As-Shams, one the first black-owned jazz record labels  in South Africa, which shared a long-time affiliation with legendary pianist Abdullah Ibrahim, who passed away in Germany in June this year. It also documents an iconic Johannesburg record store surviving as a cultural institution under apartheid as well as the visionary founder, Rashid Vally who started it all.

Join us for an intimate conversation digging into lesser known history unearthed through records, listening, archival material, story-telling, narrative journalism that details an important chapter in South Africa's musical and cultural history. The zine was printed and launched as part of Rhythm Alliances, the ninth edition of Colomboscope in Sri Lanka in January, which was guest curated by SAVVY's own Hajra Haider Karrar.

Atiyyah Khan  is an arts journalist, archivist, DJ, sound scholar and cultural historian, originally from Johannesburg but based in Cape Town. For the past 18 years, she has documented arts and culture in South Africa and her work has been published in major publications in South Africa and abroad. Common themes in her work focus on topics like spatial injustice, untold stories of apartheid, jazz history and underground art movements. In 2010, she was awarded the Pulitzer Fellowship earning her an MA in Arts Journalism from the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. She started collecting records more seriously when co-founding music collective Future Nostalgia in 2013, with other music lovers, as a way to come together and listen. The collective is a platform to bring "collectors, selectors, deejays, and diggers" together and hosts listening sessions all over South Africa.

Outside of writing and DJing, Atiyyah collaborated with Zimbabwean choreographer Nora Chipaumire and toured extensively internationally; experimented with zine-making, hosted radio shows on WorldwideFM (UK) and currently on J-Wave (Japan) and frequently works on creating radio shows, podcasts, sonic lectures and other archival sound works. In January 2026, she had her first exhibition at Colomboscope in Sri Lanka, launching her latest publication zine A Journey Into The Sun, focusing on South Africa’s first black-owned record label. Atiyyah believes the best part about music is getting to share it with others. Her sets as DJ El Corazon (the heart), digs deep into her record collection to weave in sounds including jazz, African and Latin groove, middle-eastern rhythms, dub, reggae, gnawa, cumbia, taarab, soul, funk and beyond .Her sets are rooted in a sonic journey that maps out sounds which often remain hidden.

Currently she writes for various publications documenting South African arts and culture and continues her DJ and sound work through Future Nostalgia.