The Last 30 Years of South African Music

It’s A Lifestyle

Kwaito became more than just a music; it was a lifestyle, a way of understanding the world, and an identity of a youth that was attempting to define itself away from the horrors of its host country’s past. Names such as M’du Masilela, Trompies, Brothers of Peace, Arthur Mafokate, Boom Shaka and more became valuable items, human memorabilia that had evolved from inner city nightclubs under the guidance of DJs such as Christos and Oskido. They bloomed into countrywide phenomena through campus tours at colleges and universities in provinces such as Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, and the Eastern Cape. Record labels had to step in; grubby fingers primed to take a slice of the pie. Radio and television had to playlist this ghetto boombox and beam it live and direct to households whose rebel youth sought a sonic vernacular to help articulate its sense of purpose.

Founders of the sound became millionaires, and the machine needed more artists to keep the engine running. Sony subsidiary M’du Records, an imprint owned by Masilela, CCP subsidiary 999 Music, owned by Mafokate, and the independent Kalawa Jazmee records, owned by a conglomerate that comprised jazz musician Don Laka and club deejays Christos Katsaitis and Oscar Warona Mdlongwa, and the formidable pantsula group Trompies, were chief among the list of record labels that defined a generation. Each one had their own sound and curated their talent in a specific way, but the connective tissue of Black joy united. Meanwhile, the Rainbow Nation Project curated its own set of myths; Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, Black Economic Empowerments, Reconstruction and Development Programme houses played out in the background.

Kwaito became a remedy to numb the impact of the lie we had been sold, and it was all okay until it wasn’t. Mandela was everyone’s favorite, the country’s trajectory differentiated it from post-independence states continent-wide, meaning that it was the exception. That era produced truly legendary music that would be referenced by morphologies like Durban kwaito, new age kwaito, and amapiano in subsequent decades. Other names that stand out from that period are the hip-hop-leaning TKZee, the pan-Africanist spectacle Bongo Maffin, the ruff-and-rugged gangsta-toned Chiskop, the raggamuffin-branded Skeem and Aba Shante, the Pantsula-rooted Alaska, and the party-and-bullshit X-rated content that made Thebe the de facto shield of the groove nation.

A Maze of Amazements

When the 2000s rolled over, when we survived the techno-Armageddon of Y2K and found ourselves in a post-9/11 reality, a waning sound also had to redefine itself. Zola, Brown Dash, Bricksz, Kabelo, and others held the forte while the wave of house music’s mid-tempo and the DJ compilations that had been gaining ground towards the latter part of the ‘90s found an audience that was ready for something else. Hip-hop, which had largely flown beneath the radar and existed in the nether regions while kwaito overshadowed it, was gaining new ground. Names such as HHP, Skwatta Kamp, ProKid, Proverb, Goddessa and others continued what Prophets of da City and Black Noize had kick-started as the ‘90s were rolling in. Each one came with their distinctive identities and represented unique regions in Mzansi. Tumi and the Volume gave us the spectacle-worthy Live at the Bassline, Skwatta Kamp’s Khut En Joyn gave a deserving outfit its first SAMA honor, a little-known indie called Outrageous Records produced memorable mixtapes and compilations Maximum Sentense Vol. 1 and Expressions, and great battle rappers-turned-incredible artists such as Zubz produced timeless albums such as Listener’s Digest.

Coming in From the Cold

Meanwhile, Durban was coming in quick, and it was hard to ignore. It gave kwaito a new layer of paint and a sparkling sheen. As DJ Tira told the esteemed Kwanele Sosibo, “I think we ­[Afrotainment] bring some color to these cloudy days of South Africa. Livelihood, my man, speed up the tempo. You know that before we arrived, the tempo was slow, neh? […] We came and injected some energy, so now everybody is on a high. And when everybody is high, everybody is happy…”

Big Nuz’s fiery “Umlilo” stood upright in the face of Skwatta Kamp’s “Umoya,” a steady-footed procession that L’vovo Derrango had burst open when he told everyone who’d dare listen that he is irresistible.

Further north, Pretoria was rejoicing in the newfound, taxi-subsidized economy of bacardi house (or Lezenke) as led by Mujava, a sound as chaotic as the kids that spawn from the corrugated iron households in which it was made; a sound that was a dubstep makeover by Brit producer Skream. In the midst of all that was this Afropop sound whose purveyors Mafikizolo, Ntando, Malaika laid firm ground on and which acts such as Sjava, Kelly Khumalo, Blaq Diamond, Azana and Ami Faku would grow.

The Blog Era

The 2010s kicked in and the underground needed a home. The now-defunct KasiMp3 was a Myspace-style back-end that fuelled music discovery and laid the ground for gqom to channel its broken beat straight from the rolling hills of Umlazi, Nanda and Clermont townships. Guided by the spirit of Durban kwaito, and reeling from its disavowal by the likes of Black Coffee and Tira — the latter did soften up to the genre when it proved profitable for his Afrotainment enterprise to do so — gqom quickly caught the attention of international labels, media houses, clubs and festival that turned early practitioners like DJ Lag into touring sensations. Early bangers in the gqom mold include DJ Lusiman’s “Wamnad uQohh,” Madanon’s “Thana Woshi,” itself a midnight bheng by the prolific super-producer, Sbucardo Da DJ, who had multiple songs to his name on KasiMp3.

“I don’t want to be a component of the music industry, just the way that Facebook is not a part of any social society; it’s an entity on its own. I wanna manufacture superstars; that’s the output that I want,” declared founder and developer Mokgethwa Mapaya regarding his intentions for KasiMp3.

In a parallel world, Spoek Mathambo and the Blk Jks were enjoying viable careers overseas, aided in part by publications such as The Fader, who took note of their distinctive dance rap and black rock morphologies and launched them to a niche, but attentive foreign audience. The former was a hip-hop outsider who came through the ranks making records with the likes of Max Normal.TV, Playdoe and Sweat.X; and the latter were renowned Soweto rockers who’d been gigging in the scene for a scorching minute. Blk Jks were in league with bands such as 340ml, whose dub-inflected sound had live music lovers contemplating what they’d be doing on a Friday night.

In the same vein, Kwani Experience broke many a heart when their founding vocalist Nosisi Ngwenya departed; Freshlyground were university mates who peppered whatever blends PJ Powers had put into her Rainbow Nation-flavored bobotie; and Moodphase 5ive were Cape Town originals who were all about their funk, their shrooms and their weed, and their elevated, conscious messaging. The ill raps and the mellowed-out vocals, courtesy of emcee D.Form and vocalist Ernestine Deane, were invaluable cherries on top.

Though rarely credited, blogs that were taking up priceless internet real estate during the 2010s fuelled careers of artists such as Okmalumkoolkat, Ricky Rick, Cassper Nyovest, AKA, K.O, and more of their ilk that would be in the masala mix when, for the first time, hip-hop became the talk of the town in a Mzansi Republic that was widely known for its love for iSgubhu in all its forms. Teams of then-students with time on their hands performed hours of unpaid labor through their Wordpress, Blogger, and Tumblr-themed posts; they bridged the music discovery gap and bought enough time for aforementioned musicians to build an audience sizable enough for the radio to take note. Their multimedia-heavy blog posts broke many songs and fed the ears of an eager audience that was paying close attention throughout the African continent.

Nowadays

Tyla’s big moment on the global stage this year was the result of endless toiling by amapiano aficionados over the years. It’s not a new sound; ‘piano’s been part and parcel of the South African dance fabric for a decade. But something special happened towards the end of 2019, and carried on throughout the extended lockdown period that left people with endless hours to discover content online. A combination of DSP investment, artist readiness, and platforms like Balcony Mix seeing a business opportunity, elevated a sound that was niche in a global context to dizzying heights. Suddenly, Afrobeats had taken a backseat and this new log drum thing was being afforded the head seat at the table. But as is the case with the global explosion of localized sounds, there remains a lag in the innovation that happens on the ground and how quickly people elsewhere catch up.

Mzansi’s knack for innovation means that there’ll be a ‘piano revamp by the time you read this, which is a good thing, and part of the reason why this southernmost tip of the African continent shall continue leading the way in as far as new sounds go. Tyla herself said it best, that “when you are born in South Africa and you’re immersed in the culture of amapiano and the dancing and everything, there’s just a different rhythm that you have, a different bounce….”

Here’s to the next three decades of unfiltered, unbothered bounce and untethered innovation.