nice one 🇿🇦 listening all the way from South Africa and this gave me instant nostalgia of this whole era growing up 🔥🔥🔥

Love this mix, any chance we could get a tracklisting?

twenty years ago, I traveled to the continent for the first time and landed in Durban, South Africa. I heard kwaito in taxi vans with full-on sound systems and learned more about Winnie and the 1980s decade of resistance. From that point forward, I kept my eye and ear on the pulse of the music—the social context of the rhythms.

In 2019, I heard amapiano for the first time and listened closely throughout the initial stages of lockdown and the pandemic. Part of why it's held me is because you could hear a kind of yearning to be out and in the community—a sort of wailing. Now with amapiano in the diasporic spotlight, I can hear how the music has changed. Music changes.

I don't speak any of the many languages in South Africa, so the difference I hear is mainly a sonic one. Producers and DJs are making and presenting music with the dance floor, concerts, events, and parties in mind.

On this month's episode of the Black Atlantic/Black Fantastic, I'm spinning kwaito from the early 90s and 2000s, before making my way to the earlier days of  amapiano. I love how the music is marked by this global shift (though it’s a heavy one) and look forward to seeing more emerge from Southern Africa (Mozambique, Botswana, Zimbabwe, etc.), in general. The whole region is funky as hell. I’ve traveled up and down the those parts chasing the sound 🇿🇦 🇿🇼 🇲🇿

Comments

DJ Panaflex

user954222815

Yuppie Threads

DJ LyraLyra

Foxy Browne.

senor Benji