During Belgian Music Week, we provide world- and folk-music lovers with a true two-day treat. On Monday 27 January, the Flanders Folk Awards will be presented. A day later, the Belgian Worldwide Music Network organises its annual showcases, interspersed with the announcement of the Belgian Worldwide Music Awards winners for 2025.

Expect four fine, local ‘worldwide’ acts. Gaïsha, NENA, Soledad Kalza & Sina Kienou and Peixe e Limão were selected by an external jury.

Gaïsha
Gaïsha is a collaboration between impressive Belgian-Moroccan singer/rapper Aïcha Haskal and a string of top Belgian musicians performing oriental and psychedelic grooves with a Brussels touch. Aïcha’s voice is soft and warm, switching seamlessly between Arabic song, parlando and rap. The diverse backgrounds of the musicians results in a brilliant melting pot of styles.

NENA
NENA was born in Seraing on the banks of the Meuse, into a family of Spanish political exiles, where she received the nickname ‘little Pasionaria’. NENA presents the show associated with her debut EP LA RAÍZ (the root). From the very first notes, you can smell the tortilla and dried peppers, see the colour of the walls, and hear the passion of endless family debates at the dinner table.
Together with Mohamed Dziri (guitar), Antoine Dawans (trumpet), Nicolas Puma (double bass) and Antoine Rotthier (drums, percussion), she presents an intense, alternately poetic then joyful mix of new latin, folk and rumba flamenca.

Peixe e Limão
Peixe e Limão is a band comprising two Italians and a Belgian who all met in Brussels. They just recently released their debut album SALTA – a collection of poetic and sensitive tracks sung in several southern languages. Another perfect concert to warm up the cold month of January.

Soledad Kalza & Sina Kienou 
Soledad Kalza & Sina Kienou is a duo that honours the musical roots of their respective people and tradition. Gypsy music and jazz for Soledad. Mandinka music, rock and improvisation for Sina, grandson of the Griot Chief of Burkina Faso. Their meeting in 2019 at the Festival Salon Musique in Burkina Faso took them on an adventurous path from east to west, from the Caribbean area to the cotton fields of the far north, from Mandinka rhythms to the Sahel blues.
Their arrangements mix rhythms and harmonies and new versions of traditional pieces, but there are also personal compositions and the musical interpretation of great poems in Dioula, Spanish, English, Romani and French.

Belgian Worldwide Music Network is a collaboration between Belgium Booms, VI.BE, WBM, Conseil de la Musique, Sabam for Culture, Playright+, Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles and AB.