'Keep moving, keep discovering': South African musician Stefan Dixon on life in Brussels

Born in Cape Town and living in Brussels for the past two years, singer-songwriter Stefan Dixon has been busy performing his fusion of "acoustic melodic folk rock with an African feeling" at venues around the country, with a follow-up to his 2010 debut album on the way.

The Belgian connection in his work was established from the outset. When he needed an extra song to fill his first album, he chose to record an Afrikaans version of the much-loved Luc de Vos/Gorki classic Mia, which is still being played on the radio today in his native South Africa. "I didn't know the song was as big as it is in Flanders," he says.

Then, last year, a song about Brussels - performed in a mix of Afrikaans and Brussels dialect - was selected for the first edition of the BrusselsTUUB music project, showcasing young musicians singing about their city in Brusseleir.

Ahead of an intimate gig at Huis 23 in the Ancienne Belgique this Wednesday - and with another Brussels performance in the diary for the start of May - we asked Stefan Dixon about his style, influences and rediscovering his native language.

Why Brussels?
Love is the number one reason: I've been dating a Flemish girl and we lived in South Africa together for 10 years. We thought maybe it was time to spend time with the family in Belgium. But also, as an artist, I think to keep moving, keep discovering new places, new cultures, can only do good for your musicality and your writing.

How would you describe your music?
The instrumental parts of my music tend to be quite upbeat, but the lyrics are sometimes a little bit darker than how the music actually feels. I enjoy that contrast. I guess one of my favourite international stars - and the way I taught myself to play acoustic guitar - is from the Dave Matthews Band. It's a very percussive way of playing guitar. It's almost more like playing drums but on the guitar.

There is a Paul Simon-esque vibe on your first album. Was he one of your influences?
There's definitely a kind of Paul Simon influence, but what people forget is that Paul Simon got his influence from African artists. Most of my influence comes from the people he got his influences from. That kind of repetitive sound that Paul Simon uses is a very basic and unique African sound. I listen to a lot of African 80s and 90s stars: Mango Groove, Johnny Clegg, Vusi Mahlasela. Vusi was one of my idols from when I grew up, a sort of Apartheid hero. He was banned from South Africa for his music for quite a while. And then I got to meet him when I started playing festivals, our paths kind of met, and I took a chance and asked if he wanted to do a song on my album. He said yes and now we're friends.

Would you say that Apartheid in South Africa influenced your songs?
In a way. I think I'm on the edge of the newer generation who are mostly extremely positive and patriotic about South Africa, even though there's still a lot of negative stuff and it keeps resurfacing. It definitely has influenced me, maybe in a more sub-conscious way because I was really young - I would have been 10 years old when Apartheid stopped, so I guess it's always in the back of my mind.

You've written one song in your native language, Afrikaans. What was that like?
It opened up a whole new world of writing for me, I rediscovered my language. It's in both Afrikaans and Brussels dialect. I really enjoy writing in Afrikaans now. It's a very conservative language, and I was pretty rebellious as a child so I never wrote anything in Afrikaans - it was all in English. English seemed like a way of breaking away from the conservatism. Only recently, I started discovering the beauty of Afrikaans, now that I’m getting a little bit older.

Your debut album was released in 2010. You must have a whole stock of songs ready for a new one?
Yes, I have lots of songs - maybe close to three albums worth of stock I've been building up. We're actually already in the process of starting, so we're in the studio already, recording a new album. I haven’t been here in Belgium for long, only two years, and I've only been allowed to work for one. We're looking at a quick release of a five-track EP, then hopefully from there I can start releasing every year again.

Stefan Dixon plays Huis 23 at the Ancienne Belgique this Wednesday, 9 March, and will be returning to Brussels on 5 May at La Porte Noire. www.stefandixon.com