Open and Umdeni are two underground parties that have both been carving out their own lanes within the scene, building communities and demographics that are unique to them.
Open is a genre-defying, hierarchy-free, built on the radical idea that a dancefloor should feel like total liberation. No pecking order, no velvet rope politics, no one sound policing the room. Just music in its most honest form and the people who want to move to it. Umdeni, meanwhile, has carved out something rarer: an underground rave concept with genuine warmth at its centre. Community-driven and alternative-leaning, it’s the kind of experience that feels curated rather than assembled, the sort of night you leave having discovered something, or someone, you hadn’t expected to.
As we continued watching each other grow, we started asking ourselves a simple question: What happens when two communities like this come together? The answer.. Open: Umdeni
Together we’re creating a party, an experiment, a deliberate collision of two audiences, two aesthetics, two ways of thinking about what a night out can mean. The format reflects this. Thirteen DJs across the lineup, with most sets running as B2Bs: artists stepping outside their comfort zones, responding to each other in real time, blending in the moment. The genre spread is intentional and wide: Afrotech, EDM, Gqom, Afro House, Mara, Jersey Club, Private School Piano, and sounds that resist categorisation entirely.
But the night begins before the first DJ even loads up.
Because it’s Pride Month, Open: Umdeni is extending the experience with a DJ workshop for queer people, creating pathways into the music ecosystem for those who have historically been kept at arm’s length from it. It’s not a symbolic gesture. It’s an acknowledgment that representation without access is just aesthetic, and that the communities both parties have built are stronger when they’re actively creating entry points for others.
The goal is experimentation. The goal is discovery. The goal is to create a space where people who genuinely love music can lose themselves in the experience.
The event takes place at Uzo Arts on June 26th, running from 10 PM until late.
Open and Umdeni are betting that the next frontier is collaboration. Not the kind that waters things down, or that merges two identities into something unrecognisable, but the kind that lets both things remain fully themselves while creating something neither could have made alone. We’re excited about what this could become, not just for one night, but for what it says about the future of nightlife, music, and community in the city.
