Hennessy, the world’s leading cognac brand and a longstanding champion of music, has officially released the highly anticipated Hennessy Cypher 2025. This year’s edition is a bold expression of Africa’s global influence on sound, placing South Africa’s very own Kabza De Small as both featured artist and producer of the track.
Featuring a powerful mix of artists from South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania and the UK, this year’s Cypher is a pan-African and diaspora collaboration that places Hennessy once more at the forefront of cultural innovation and sound evolution.
The Hennessy Cypher 2025 represents a unique blend of feats: it’s a genre-fusing, gender-inclusive and boundary-breaking musical experience designed to showcase Africa’s global influence and celebrate the diversity of expression. It also echoes the brand’s ‘Made for More’ philosophy, a belief that when creativity meets culture, the result is always greater than the sum of its parts.
For the first time, the Cypher features female artists, Femi One from Kenya and Ms Banks from the UK, while merging Amapiano, Afrobeats and Hip-Hop into a single track. This bold move reflects both the richness of Africa’s evolving soundscape and Hennessy’s commitment to elevating underrepresented voices and redefining the concept of what a Cypher can be.
From South Africa, Kabza De Small is globally recognised as the King of Amapiano. A pioneer of the genre, he was South Africa’s most-streamed artist on Spotify in 2020 and 2024, and has produced for international acts like Drake and 21 Savage.
For the Hennessy Cypher 2025, Kabza not only features as an artist but also produced the entire track, crafting the beat that unites six voices from across Africa and the diaspora. His production anchors the Cypher, blending the authentic pulse of township sound with Afrobeats and Hip-Hop to create the powerful fusion that audiences will hear this year.
“The Hennessy Cypher has always been about amplifying Africa’s creativity and showing the world how diverse and innovative our sound truly is,” says Lungile Mpharu Brand Manager, Hennessy South Africa. “South African music, and Amapiano in particular, has been setting the pace on global stages. Having Kabza produce and feature in this year’s Hennessy Cypher is a proud moment, because it shows how our artists have a platform to shine alongside the best across the continent and the rest of the world.”
Joining Kabza on the Cypher are some of the continent’s most exciting voices, featuring rising stars and household names: Kenyan rapper Femi One, Ghana’s Joey B, Nigeria’s Blaqbonez, Tanzania’s Jaivah, and the UK’s Ms Banks. Together, they bring a cross-continental balance of sound and style.
The music video for Cypher 2025 unfolds inside the Hennessy House, a metaphorical mansion where each room represents a different genre, rhythm and cultural movement. This symbolic creative concept brings to life the idea of co-existence over competition, where Hip-Hop, Amapiano and Afrobeats live side by side in a single visual and musical space.
Directed and produced in Cape Town, South Africa, the Hennessy House becomes a canvas for multi-cultural sound and continental fashion, transitioning from room to room in a sleek journey through a diverse musical landscape.
For over 50 years, Hennessy has been woven into the DNA of Hip-Hop. From Tupac to Snoop, Nas to Drake, the brand has been name-checked in over 4,000 songs, making Hennessy the most mentioned spirit brand in music history.
Experience the 2025 Hennessy Cypher here: https://bfan.link/hennessy-cypher
