In South Africa, where inequality is rife, young and underprivileged producers are pushing the evolution of amapiano. In the second instalment of our three-part series documenting Amapiano's Second Wave, Jake Colvin explores how community generosity and collaboration helps artists innovate amid challenging conditions This article is the second in a three part-series about amapiano, exploring [...]
Amapiano’s lineage can be traced back to the kwaito music which emerged in apartheid South Africa. In the first of a three-part series exploring Amapiano's Second Wave, Jake Colvin examines what those roots mean for the sound today THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE IT “Amapiano is winning all over the gaff,” Marcus Nasty tells me. “But where it [...]
Pioneered by Thakzin and co-signed by Kaytranada, this twist on Afro house combines elements of amapiano, Afro tech and broken beat. Shiba Melissa Mazaza charts the genre's rise. It was a sweltering December evening in Johannesburg and I was perched onstage behind a speaker, only arm's length from the decks. All around me, a [...]
Uncle Waffles' international success represents an exhilarating era for southern African music. As her groundbreaking career continues its ascent, the Eswatini DJ, producer and performer speaks to Natty Kasambala about the ancestral power of log drums, the universal language of dancing, and touching grass It’s impossible to think of amapiano on the global stage without [...]
AfroTech is a prominent dance music style in clubs around the world — but in its country of origin the genre's future hangs in the balance. Setumo-Thebe Mohlomi reports on the need to support creativity and spirituality within South Africa's scene Waving hands reach for the sky, or something beyond it; some with flat palms [...]
In South Africa's burgeoning ballroom scene, pioneering figures and DJs are finding their own ‘Ha’ in the country's past, and in the contemporary sounds of gqom, amapiano, and Afrobeats. Tazmé Pillay learns more “DJ, cut the beat.” The room falls silent — an unforgivable sin anywhere else, but this is no nightclub. This is a [...]
The musical artist Musa Keys performing at the Afro Nation festival in Miami, in May.Photograph by Chris Allmeid / Courtesy Afro Nation A new form of South African dance music is thriving. A pair of twin brothers, known as Major League Djz, want the rest of the world to pay attention. It was [...]
It will be a hot summer for the Neapolitan DJ. And infinitely interesting when it flows into a hot autumn Mimmo Falcone is MoBlack , someone who immediately believed in afro house so much that he became its disciple. He left from Sant'Antonio Abate, a town half an hour's journey from the city of Naples, with the intention [...]
Apple Music today announced the latest featured artist in its Africa Rising artist development program is Nkosazana Daughter, an Amapiano singer-songwriter hailing from KwaZulu-Natal. “I am over the moon to be the cover star of Africa Rising for my debut album that’s just dropped! Thank you to Apple Music and to all of you [...]
This frenetic, TikTok-ready sound is taking over the streets of Lagos—and beyond. But is it ready to go mainstream? The Nigerian genre cruise (AKA freebeat or cruise beat) seems designed to cause the body to move before the mind understands what's happening. It's a delirious blur of vocals and drums, influenced by other African [...]