Alex Wann & SONA

Two routes into the same sound

The billing is a pairing, not a partnership. Alex Wann and SONA have no joint catalogue and no shared alias; they are two Afro house acts placed at the top of the same poster for one night at Bohemia Beach Club at FIVE Palm Jumeirah on Saturday 14 November 2026. That date, promoted as Bohemia Presents Alex Wann & SONA, is the only listing anywhere under the joint name.

What makes the pairing coherent is that both arrive at percussion-led house from opposite directions. Wann is from Paris and reached a global touring schedule off the back of a single track that other DJs carried for him. SONA is South African, began releasing in 2021, and has spent the years since putting distance between his own sets and the sound his father helped define. Neither is a veteran: between them they have about eight years of released work.

Paris, and the rework that travelled on DJ support

Wann's breakthrough was an Afro house reimagining of Kelis's "Milkshake", which became one of the most-chased unidentified tracks of summer 2023 after the Keinemusik crew premiered it at Brooklyn Mirage in New York. The chain of support that followed is the entire story of how he got a career: Diplo, Pete Tong, John Summit and BLOND:ISH all played it, and the record spread through sets before it meant anything on a streaming chart.

He converted that into releases across several labels rather than settling on one home — Cercle Records, EMI, Astralwerks and Black Book Records have all carried his material, alongside remix work for Adriatique and Eynka on Cercle and a rework of Route 94's "My Love" for EMI. In 2024 he played back to back with Pete Tong at Ibiza's IMS, and his club and festival run has taken in Tomorrowland, EDC, Pacha Ibiza, Hï Ibiza and XS at Wynn in Las Vegas.

Asked in May 2026 how he keeps a selection from collapsing into whatever is trending, he gave a flat answer: "I try to follow what I personally like more than what I see online." He is not hostile to the platforms that made him — "Streaming opened a lot of possibilities and helped me discover music and artists I probably would not have found before" — which separates him from the vinyl-first position his own collaborators take.

Crosstown Rebels, and an hour of mostly his own records

The most significant release of his career to date landed on 8 May 2026: the Allo EP, his debut on Damian Lazarus's Crosstown Rebels. It runs to two tracks — the title cut, a warm, groove-led collaboration with the German producer JUNO, and "IDONE", a solo piece built on piano chords and layered synth texture that takes considerably longer to arrive anywhere. Both "Allo" and his single "Lost Keys", released on tszr, were picked as Pete Tong's Essential New Tune on BBC Radio 1.

A month later, on 6 June 2026, he delivered a Radio 1 Essential Mix. The composition of it matters more than the fact of it: roughly 60 per cent of the twenty-four tracks were his own productions, including unreleased material with ZHU, Bipolar Sunshine, David Mackay and GUDFELLA. For a producer whose name was made by one rework three years earlier, filling most of a two-hour slot with unheard originals is the clearest available evidence that the catalogue has caught up with the bookings.

SONA, and the surname question

SONA is Esona Maphumulo, son of the Grammy-winning South African producer Black Coffee. He launched in 2021 and his best-known credit is not his own release: he produced and co-wrote "Texts Go Green" on Drake's Honestly, Nevermind, an album that broke Apple Music's first-day streaming record for a dance release.

He has been direct about the inheritance from the start. Speaking to a South African paper in November 2023, aged 24, he described headlining in Ibiza alongside his father as "one of the most surreal moments I've ever had", and framed his own production as an attempt to "defy the norm of how the current Afro-house sound that my dad is championing" works. On whether the door was simply opened for him: "If I wasn't good at this DJing thing, I don't think I would've gotten as far." He credits Black Coffee and Culoe De Song as the two people he learned from.

His own run has built steadily rather than suddenly: Ultra South Africa's tenth anniversary edition, debuts at La Mesa in Los Angeles and GOSPEL in New York, Tomorrowland in Belgium, and repeat appearances with his father at Hï Ibiza and in Las Vegas. He played Soundstorm at Banban outside Riyadh on 11 December 2025, and on 22 September 2026 he appeared at UNVRS in Ibiza on a Black Coffee night with Wizkid as special guest. His sets lean deeper and more experimental than the melodic Afro house that dominates the format.

Where they stand, October 2026

Wann is in the densest stretch of touring he has done. Listings have him on eighteen upcoming shows across nine countries. On 24 October 2026 he played DGTL's Amsterdam Dance Event programme at the NDSM Warehouse, a 14:00–22:30 session curated by the South African DJ Shimza and built explicitly around the Afro house spectrum, with Âme, Bedouin, AMÉMÉ, DESIREE and JAMIIE on the same bill.

From there the run is relentless and deliberately split between club rooms and festivals: Marrakesh on 30 October, a Halloween date at Hem in northern France, then a North American leg through Boston on 5 November, Toronto on 6 November and the Vera Rooftop in Washington DC on 7 November. Dubai follows on 14 November, then T7 in Paris on 20 November, KOKO in London on 27 November as part of a WhoMadeWho weekender, and the ZAZU indoor festival in Antwerp the next night. December takes in Los Angeles, Vancouver, Club Vinyl in Denver and EDC Thailand in Phuket from 18 to 20 December.

SONA's schedule is less publicly catalogued — much of his work still appears as a guest on his father's nights rather than under his own listing — which makes the Dubai date one of the few places his name sits at the top of a bill on its own terms.

What the night actually is

Anyone expecting a stage production should recalibrate. This is a beach club booking at a hotel on the Palm, outdoors, with the sea and the Marina skyline doing the work that lighting rigs do elsewhere. Doors are at 19:00, the room is 21 and over, and the bill runs Alex Wann and SONA at the top with MrGoodalf and Anrey underneath — a resident pairing rather than a touring support act.

No published reviews of the Wann and SONA pairing exist, because it has not happened yet and the two have no documented history of playing together. The honest guide to what the headline hours will sound like is Wann's June Essential Mix — Afro and tech house, heavy on his own unreleased material — and SONA's deeper, more percussive end of the same register. Tickets were listed in dance-floor and VIP table tiers, with the tables close to sold out several weeks ahead.