As if completing his new album wasn’t already enough, Nakhane’s foray into acting with The Wound just got longlisted for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2018 Oscars. Born in a tiny rural town on South Africa’s eastern cape, Nakhane’s adolescence was shaped by three things: music, his sexuality and the Christian upbringing that forced him to suppress it. After coming out as gay at 19, the church he attended prayed for his heterosexual redemption, using him as a poster boy for members of the community that flirted with the idea of acting on queer instincts, to show them how to be saved from a life of sin. Fearing how he would cope without the support religion gave him, he complied, diving deep into a bout of depression and anxiety as a result. For a while, he made folk music in Cape Town’s open mic scene but he wanted something else. Soon after that epiphany, he stopped pretending. A spiritual sonic trip, Nakhane’s sophomore record, You Will Not Die, was made in the wake of his escape from Christianity’s clutches, allowing him to embrace his sexual identity. The album took over four years to write, in part because of Nakhane’s award-winning turn in the indie film The Wound (longlisted for Best Foreign Language Film at the forthcoming 2018 Academy Awards) but also because he seemed intent on making sure the music was as honest as it could be. Each song was re-written and toiled over at least 15 times before he reached the studio, switching production ideas and swapping out single words in the lyrics until he was happy. The finished product sways between gospel-inspired tracks about blooming secret love affairs and gay sex, like in Teen Prayer, and odes to the family members that have always stuck by his side; Star Red is about his grandmother, who he refers to as “the original bad bitch” when introducing the song live on stage.