The Socialite is honoured to be a part of the Red Bull Mobile movement that has taken SA and the world over by storm. Check out this week’s featured news from the World of Red Bull…

With the unique Red Bull Mobile portal offering exclusive content from world news and events to glimpses into various selected athlete’s daily lives, action-packed videos and Red Bull TV and game apps it’s easy to see the world’s fascination.

The Socialite was browsing the portal recently and decided to feature an update on the Red Bull Music Academy which is set to take place in October and November later this year.

In 2003, the fifth Red Bull Music Academy took place in the centre of Cape Town, the exact location where the Red Bull Studio is today. It was the beginning of Red Bull’s long-term connection with South African culture and music, evident in the amazing projects that have taken place locally since then.

Red Bull Music Academy 2003 made an indelible mark with, not only the Academy, but the Mother City itself. For just over a month Cape Town’s music scene rallied together to participate in various ways alongside 40 incredible music artists from around the world who were the participants chosen for the Academy.

In the centre of the city they absorbed knowledge from lecturers such as Bob Moog, the legendary pioneer of the synthesiser, and local industry stalwarts, Krushed and Sorted who at that stage were at the peak of the African Dope revolution. Afterwards they recorded and produced music in the various specifically built studios before being chaperoned around Cape Town by Duncan Ringrose and Ivan Turanjanin, godfathers of the local scene now. They would then perform with the likes of the Real Estate Agents, party down in Gugulethu to Kwaito, a dance-music revelation to the Techno loving RBMA team, and jam out with b-boys alongside Ready D in the Cape Flats.

The Academy was not closed off to the surrounding creative music hub of Cape Town. Artists had to the opportunity to perform at the nightly RBMA organised events and many DJs participated by playing on the live RBMA Radio Show broadcast around the city. It was undoubtedly a landmark in the Red Bull Music Academy’s history and those amazing five weeks still resonate with the local music scene to this day.

Which is the reason why A Class Of Its Own 2008 took place in Cape Town. A handful of past Academy participants and lecturers came together for two weeks in Cape Town to produce a series of exclusive tracks and reconnect with the Red Bull Music Academy. The team included the likes of Aloe Blacc, DJ Zinc, Robin Hannibal and Black Coffee.

A Class Of Its Own was very much the christening of the Red Bull Studio Cape Town, the second Red Bull Studio in the world to be launched after Aukland. Since then the Studio in CT has become a central creative hub that has not only hosted just about every respected artist and band in the country, from Tumi Molekane to Freshly Ground, but has also helped source up and coming talent such as the abstract genius of O’ltak and Cape Town’s Kwaito ambassadors, the Ruffist. This, combined with the amazing events that the Red Bull Studio is involved with such as the Studio Live Stages at Oppikoppi and Rocking the Daisies, makes it one of RBMA’s most resounding spin-offs and a legacy of the hazy, magical month back in 2003.

Of course the biggest legacy that RBMA has had locally is the dozens of participants to have attended over the years. Even before 2003, the likes of Craig Massiv of Flash Republic fame and Pretoria’s house music don, Sisco had attended the Academy. Up till now SA’s Academy alumni include the pioneering prodigy, Culoe De Song, Red Bull Studio manager and electronica artist, Richard the Third and of course the heroic Deep-House-hold-name , Black Coffee.

Now in 2011, a South African artist will once again attend the up-coming Red Bull Music Academy which is set to take place in the gorgeous Madrid, Spain. His name is Emile Hoogenhout, aka Behr, and we’ve got a lot to say about him so watch this space…