The South African contribution to, and enthusiasm for, Deep House, is not widely known outside the country itself. 

Deep House gets played on the radio here during the the day, and is also popular in nightclubs. It was here in the nineties and noughties that European and American DJs travelled from relative obscurity back home to be welcomed as celebrities; and where a love for deep, four-to-the-floor beats could still, possibly, unify those who perceive, and experience, difference in terms of wealth, income, property and skin-colour. 

South Africa is the origin of Afro House - a true Deep House nation.

House music has been reformatted many times in South Africa. Before it became globally popular, it was from here that the Afro House sound came and proliferated. It was from here that the world came to know and love Black Coffee, and the distinct sound he pioneered.

Innovative township producers with a DIY mindset spawned a fledgling scene here in the the hope-filled post-Apartheid 1990s, and the DJs kept the music soft and soothing. Dancers allegedly left the dancefloor if the beats got too heavy (thousands of miles from what was happening back in Europe, in more than just a geographical sense), and taxi-drivers' soundsystems were kingmakers.

My mix, built in reverence to this era, aims to perpetuate a sound I heard years later, loved and sought to collect, compile and share.

After a contribution in the form of a [soon to be edited] speech by Nelson Madela himself, Nkosinathi Maphumulo (Black Coffee) - arguably SA house music's most important representative - starts proceedings with his deeply unifying message in a collaboration with Hugh Masekela. The mix then moves on to the lush, lo-fi sounds of adopted SA favourite, Charles Webster and beyond, gliding into Better Days, another Webster production likely made specially for the country itself, into tracks by some of the country's new generation - producers and singers like Kid Fonque and Zaki Ibrahim. 

It also includes tracks by those producing music with African integrity and authenticity, like Germany's Raw Artistic Soul (Dubby Rich).

History does matter, and this is a mix intended to educate, showcase and inspire. It is through our appreciation for the cultural output of other nations that our respect and reverence for them grows, perceived boundaries fall away, inter-national relations improve. Then, maybe, the real celebrations can begin. 

The is a mix for and from South Africa, the deep house nation, to the world. 

Peace & 2021Love.

Dan Grooves

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