Coke Studio is a South African reality television series based on the international format in which a number of musical artists get together to create songs from scratch, with artists from different genres paired up in the studio and given three days to create tracks, fusing different music styles.
Each episode features two well known and unknown artists from different music genres and countries. The episode focuses on the interaction between the artists, the art of writing a song as well as the mixing, recording and performing processes.
The tracks are put together by award-winning South African music producers.
The process creates a fusion of sounds from African artists such as Oliver Mtukudzi from Zimbabwe, Salma from Tanzania and the South Africans Mi Casa, Donald, Goodluck, Uhuru, Black Motion and Cassper Nyovest, to name a few.
The new artists are then given the opportunity to progress to the second phase, where they work with the big league music producers should their demo song make the cut.
Following the show's success in India and then in Pakistan, Coke Studio has now become an international franchise, with other countries such as South Africa adopting local versions.
In the first season, episodes were half an hour long and there was a voiceover artist narrating the series. For Season 2, episodes were extended to an hour and two co-hosts were introduced - Trevor Sineke and Nandi Madida. The series also moved from Monday nights at 20h30 to Saturday nights at 18h05.
Coke Studio is produced locally by Goodnoise Productions, with executive producers Brian O'Shea and Crighton Goodwill and series producer Carol Jenkins. The executive producer for e.tv was Ndabenhle Buthelezi (Season 1) and Molefi Lebone (Season 2).