By Michael Vlismas.
A rugby revolution is headed to Loftus Versfeld on Saturday 14 March when the Vodacom Bulls tackle the DHL Stormers in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship’s famous North-South Derby. And with it there will come a music revolution as well, with the first live AI-enhanced music performance at Loftus.
Jakkals Vibes will make his debut at Loftus during this derby, showcasing the arrival of what has been described as one of the most disruptive and talked-about new forces in South African music.
With over 16 million streams on Spotify, more than five million plays on Apple Music, over 22 million views on YouTube, upwards of 88 000 TikTok followers, an appearance at Afrikaans is Groot, and multiple covers of his songs by established Afrikaans artists, Jakkals Vibes is speaking loudly into the hearts of music lovers.
The question is why?
“People think it’s just pressing a button. But they’re asking the wrong question. The real question is, ‘How did this song make it into the Maroela Top 20?”
The song in question is Heeltemal Stom, which became the first AI-assisted production to make it into the Maroela Media Afrikaanse Top-20.
As Jakkals Vibes explains, “It wasn’t an algorithm that wrote it. It wasn’t a machine that felt it. It was a songwriter who chose to use artificial intelligence as a production instrument, not as a replacement for creativity, but as a tool to amplify it.”
It’s perhaps no coincidence that if ever there was a medium perfectly suited to showing the human side to AI, then it is music. Music has always transcended normal boundaries.
“I was contacted by a woman who became a quadriplegic after an accident. Before that, she was a musician. She played guitar. Music was part of her identity. She asked me to turn her lyrics into a song. I write my own lyrics, so that’s not something I do. But I understood what she was really asking for. She didn’t need someone to create for her. She needed her voice back.
“I walked her through how to use AI as a production instrument, how to structure her ideas, shape the sound, refine the arrangement, and stay in control of her own creative direction. Step by step. Today she is releasing her own music.”
But he is quick to point out that she’s not doing so for any obvious commercial reasons.
“She has something more valuable, the restoration of her voice in a form that once felt permanently lost. That’s what technology can do when it’s used with intention and humanity. Technology serves the story. Not the other way around.”
Jakkals Vibes relates several stories of people who’ve told him how his music has touched them.
A woman who contacted him and explained how she had lost the will to even stand because of illness, and found strength again through his music. People who’ve sent him messages of how they’ve played his songs at funerals and at hospital beds. Parents who have lost children and found solace in his lyrics.
“That’s not about numbers. That’s not about trends. That’s impact. That’s why Jakkals Vibes exists. The philosophy runs deeper than one song. AI music isn’t a click that suddenly goes viral. There’s a greater story behind it.”