Dark Amapiano: Spookasem

Umculo wama nothi

Siya Saphaza (feat. Killer Kau & Sir Trill)

New album out on digital platforms Feb 4, 2022
https://linktr.ee/TenoAfrika

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Teno Afrika & Diego Don — AK Love

Teno Afrika's new album "Where You Are"
Digital version out now
https://linktr.ee/TenoAfrika

Teno Afrika’s 2020 debut Amapiano Selections drew an international wave of support sparked by the producer’s deftly minimal take on the emergent style. Amapiano combines the South African predilection for deep house alongside a melange of endemic influences like kwaito, jazz and gqom. The 22-year-old’s new crop of songs Where You Are expands on his rhythmic subtlety hooded in warm bass adorned by amapiano’s telltale shakers, hi-hats and mid-tempo shuffle. 

Lutendo Raduvha hails from Pretoria, South Africa, where he produces music incessantly and DJ’s parties around Gauteng province. He hangs with a crowd of musical friends, many of whom join him on Where You Are. For his second album Teno Afrika brings more vocalists into the sonic picture, unlocking an emotive and timbral escalation to his rapidly mushrooming catalog of work.

Singers Leyla and KayCee feature on the title track and “Fall In Love,” respectively. Regular cohort Diego Don joins for two driving, pad-propelled works of significant vibrancy, “SK Love” and “AK Love.”  

The album's dramatic closer “Duma ICU” features another returning collaborator, Stylo MusiQ, who helps bring an icy, almost cinematic conclusion to a slice of the sound Teno Afrika is pushing at the moment. There’s a palpable feeling of not knowing where the young producer might go next.

Where You Are

Teno Afrika — Bells

UYATHANDEKA

UYATHANDEKA (feat. MaWhoo)

My House My Rules

Shukushuku (feat. Senjay)

Ruku Wu

To Last

To Last (Remix) [feat. DJ Maphorisa & Young Stunna]

Sofa Silahlane (feat. Nkosazana Daughter, Lowsheen)

Sofa Silahlane (feat. Nkosazana Daughter, Lowsheen) [Remix]

babylon overdrive

Everlasting - 2nd Musical Episode

Angry Soul

Amapiano Selections

8 Ubers (Tribute to DJ Jaivane)

Techno Mode

DJ Black Low "Downfall Revisit"

Digital album out 12 March. https://linktr.ee/DJBlackLow

In many ways, DJ Black Low’s debut album, Uwami, shows the signs of an artist’s first offering in any musical genre. Showcasing fluency in a broad range of styles and stuffing a number of ideas to the record’s brim is the 20 year-old producer’s attempt to both introduce himself to a wide listenership and stamp a recognizable sound in their minds. In other ways, somewhat out of the young South African producer’s control, Uwami goes against the grain.
The album comes at a time when South African electronic music is being fundamentally disrupted. Amapiano, the electronic music movement which first gained popularity with a small, core group of followers, now dominates the mainstream. Well-known and pervasive, amapiano borrows from a diverse palette of musical styles which are popular in South Africa’s largely Black townships- jazz, kwaito, dibacardi, deep and afro house among them. 
Instead of pandering to the seemingly insatiable local appetite and growing global penchant for amapiano though, on Uwami DJ Black Low seeks out the limits of the sound du jour and tries to stretch them. On his solo productions, he uses the samples and compositional norms that make amapiano hits the bedrock on which to experiment and improvise. With collaborators, DJ Black Low improvises within the boundaries of listener-friendly grooves.
The sound he creates has foundations of what could easily have progressed into captivating amapiano songs on their own. But he uses improvised but structured electronic percussion and distortion sounds to drive the tracks in a particular direction. What remains is something like a deconstructed amapiano.
For a young producer living in the townships of the greater Pitori area of South Africa’s Gauteng province, there were few avenues available for Radebe to pursue a career in music. His trajectory shows the vulnerability of this pursuit. “I had started producing in 2013 and it so happened that I lost my equipment in 2014. I couldn’t afford to buy equipment. In 2017, a friend of mine who had been making music found a job and decided to quit music. He gave me his equipment and I was able to start producing again. That’s when I started getting back to it. I tried to pick up where I had left off, with hip hop and commercial house but I found that amapiano was the popular music. I liked it, so I started producing it.”

DJ Black Low & Hapas Music feat. DJ KS & Patna "Jaiva Low"

Sounds of Africa

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Global beat culture, dancehall to Afrobeats, digital cumbia to bhangra. Curated by SoundCloud.

Teno Afrika — Bells

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