SlikourOnLife to turn the Nedbank IMC into a live music experiment

The Nedbank IMC has announced a new collaboration with Siya Metane, widely known as Slikour, Group CEO and founder of SlikourOnLife, for its 2026 conference taking place on Thursday, 17 September 2026 at Mosaïek Teatro in Johannesburg or online.

Rather than simply talking about music's role in marketing, SlikourOnLife will demonstrate it.

Throughout rehearsal day on 16 September and the conference itself on 17 September, the SlikourOnLife team will capture vox pops, soundbites and voices from speakers and delegates and use them to build an original conference track in real time.

The project is designed as a live test of a broader marketing idea: that music can operate not only as entertainment, but as media, culture and a commercially meaningful platform for brands.

The track will be developed from a studio space inside the main auditorium during the day, with MC Donovan Goliath introducing the experiment in his opening and checking in with Metane as it develops.

The completed song will then be revealed live as the final moment of the conference, with Metane joining Goliath on stage for The Conference Song: Revealed Live.

The collaboration reflects SlikourOnLife's broader proposition around music, culture and commercial value. The platform has built its business around helping brands and creators connect more credibly with audiences through African music, content, distribution and cultural participation.

For the Nedbank IMC, the experiment also puts Marketing is Business® into practice, testing what happens when content born inside a major marketing platform is turned into a piece of music and distributed beyond the conference itself.

“Siya and SlikourOnLife are not coming to tell marketers that music can create cultural and commercial value. They are going to demonstrate it, live,” said Dale Hefer, CEO of the Nedbank IMC.

Metane has built a career across music, media and entrepreneurship. Best known initially through his work in South African hip-hop, he went on to build SlikourOnLife into a media and cultural platform connecting artists, audiences and brands.

His role at the Nedbank IMC will extend beyond the live song creation, with SlikourOnLife also creating content from the day and engaging with selected speakers, marketers and delegates.

The finished track will be shared across all major music distribution platforms, including Spotify, YouTube and Apple Music, as well as the SlikourOnLife and Nedbank IMC platforms after the conference. This will extend the experiment beyond the event itself, allowing its performance to be measured through streams, shares, saves, reach and other audience engagement.

The collaboration forms part of the Nedbank IMC 2026 theme, Shift Happens™. Are You Ready?, and its broader focus on how marketing is changing across technology, culture, creativity and business.

The Nedbank IMC 2026 takes place on Thursday, 17 September 2026 at Mosaïek Teatro in Johannesburg or online.

To find out more, visit www.imcconference.com

About the Nedbank IMC

The Nedbank IMC is Africa’s Biggest Marketing Conference™, attracting more than 3,000 delegates from 20 countries in 2025. It is a neutral industry platform focused on advancing marketing in Africa and strengthening marketing’s role in business. The conference partners with the Marketing Association of South Africa (MASA) and is endorsed by the Public Relations Institute of Southern Africa (PRISA).