NANETTE LANDS INTERNATIONAL CO-SIGN WITH ELLA MAI CAPE TOWN SLOT
Nanette’s trajectory takes a decisive step forward this April as she joins Grammy-winning British R&B singer Ella Mai for a live show in Cape Town. Set for 26 April 2026 at The Grand Arena, the moment marks one of the most visible stage platforms of her career to date, and one that speaks directly to where she stands as an artist. Known for her emotional precision and vocal restraint, Nanette brings a sound that is measured, soulful, and deeply intentional, qualities that place her in natural conversation with one of contemporary R&B’s most celebrated voices. The stage she is stepping onto is not a departure. It is confirmation that her voice belongs in rooms of this scale.
What makes this moment land is not the size of the stage, it is the company. Ella Mai has spent her career doing something that looks simple but rarely is, making people feel seen without ever overreaching. Her music does not perform emotion, it inhabits it, carried by a quiet confidence that comes from an artist who knows exactly what she wants to say and trusts herself enough not to say more than necessary. Nanette moves in the same current. Her music is not built for noise, it is built for the moments after the noise settles, shaped by a deliberateness that suggests someone who has always known who she is, and has never been willing to compromise that clarity for the sake of accessibility. Placing her alongside Ella Mai is acknowledging that shared sensibility, and signals to the wider R&B world that Nanette has found her voice. This show is simply the next stage she is carrying it onto.
For Nanette, the moment is both affirmation and forward motion. “It’s another step in the right direction for me,” she says. “I believe that my career is only ever elevating and that’s the beautiful thing about doing things at my own pace. Everything works out as it should, and I’m very grateful for this opportunity.”
The upcoming show, introduces her to a broader audience, but it also sharpens the demands of performance. Her music has largely lived in intimate, introspective spaces, records designed for reflection. The shift to a stage of this scale becomes a test of how that intimacy translates in real time.
“When getting onto any stage really, the main thing to remember is the duty you have to the audience,” she explains. “No matter the size of the stage I strive to give my all and leave it all on there.” For Nanette, performance is not separate from the music, it is an extension of it. “For those who might not know my music, the stage becomes a great place to welcome them into my world because performance really is what drives me.”
Cape Town brings its own demands. Known for audiences that listen rather than simply attend, the city offers less margin for artifice and more reward for honesty. Nanette is attentive to that exchange. “I’m interested to see which songs people gravitate towards and sing the loudest,” she says. There is no assumption in that statement, only curiosity, and a readiness to meet whatever the room gives back.
That openness to audience response comes at a time when her latest single, “Baggage,” is defining her current creative headspace. While the record is not positioned as the centerpiece of this moment, it remains the foundation beneath it, an articulation of where she stands emotionally and artistically.
“Baggage is an anthem of self-choice and self-determination,” she says, “which is really where I’m at mentally, so I guess that energy will translate itself on stage too.” The record does not arrive as a promotional strategy for the show. It arrives as context. It tells you where her head is, what she values, and how she intends to carry herself into larger rooms.
Produced by Grammy-winning Andre Harris, the single leans into a restrained vintage R&B and soul palette, where tone, space, and delivery carry as much weight as lyric. That sense of control, measured, intentional, mirrors the kind of presence required on a stage of this scale, where connection is built less on excess and more on clarity.
As she prepares for Cape Town, the moment sits between preparation and expansion. It is not framed as a breakthrough, but as a continuation, evidence of an artist whose internal foundation is beginning to meet external recognition.
With Painfully Happy (Deluxe) scheduled for release in 2026, the Cape Town show arrives at a precise moment, between a body of work already in the world and a new chapter still taking shape. Opening for Ella Mai is not a pivot. It is continuation, a widening of the spaces in which Nanette’s voice can be heard, on her own terms, at her own pace.
For Nanette, opening for Ella Mai is ultimately about context, understanding where her voice sits within a broader R&B landscape, and stepping into that space with intention.
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