Amapiano is new music to experience together

This story begins in the 1990s, in South Africa’s administrative capital, Pretoria, and the township of Soweto, near Johannesburg. The youth who, after the abolition of Apartheid, are confronted with new forms of freedom and old forms of inequality, express themselves in a similar way in both places: they formulate a response to Chicago, who had just landed in South Africa. house. Soweto responds with kwaito, a slower version of the American cousin with percussion and rap. And Pretoria with Bacardia stubborn sound that achieved international success years later with the underground hit Township Funko by DJ Mujava.

These two genres are seen as the forerunners of the immensely popular amapiano, which has also attracted a lot of attention in the Netherlands since this summer. Best Kept Secret, Down The Rabbit Hole, Lowlands, Lente Kabinet, 7Fest: they all played new electronic music from South Africa.

Amapiano simply means ‘the pianos’ in Zulu, a reference to the jazz chords that play a major role in the genre, in addition to the repetitive saxophone tones and the vocals in one of the eleven South African languages, including Xhosa and Zulu. But you can best distinguish amapiano by its bassline: a thumping, floating sound that hits your toes.

bassline

Many amapiano producers get these so-called ‘signature sounds’ from the digital music production program Fruity Loops. For example, the specific bass line is created with the ‘log drum’ (African split drum) plug-in. A plug-in is a piece of software that you can download for free. It’s one of the reasons amapiano has taken off so much: budding artists were asked for little more than a good dose of talent and access to Fruity Loops. And so you could suddenly be the next superstar in dance music.

Amapiano is considered one of Africa’s most important new sounds. In May 2022, Spotify released figures showing that the genre had already been streamed nearly a billion times. And for what those numbers are worth, the hashtag amapiano currently has 4.3 billion streams on TikTok.

Once every few years, a genre is born that contains all the elements to become a worldwide success. Of course, it’s all about innovation, musicality, ambition and a good dose of luck, but in the case of amapiano it’s also about timing.

And it is precisely the moment of breakthrough that is striking. After all, Amapiano is a dance genre: how can it become so big in a period when hardly any events were organized due to global lockdowns? We ask Wesley Texel, aka DJ Waxfiend, one of the pioneers of amapiano in the Netherlands. Not only as a DJ, but also as a programmer of the Amsterdam stages Paradiso and Parallel.

Before corona you mainly heard in the taxi vans of Johannesburg gqom coming out of the speakers’, says Texel. ‘That had all the cards to become an international success. For example, in 2019, gqom producer DJ LAG collaborated on Beyoncé’s album Black is King. Like amapiano, Gqom is percussion-oriented electronic music from South Africa. But the gqom sound is grittier and more minimalistic, and the tempo is faster.’

And those may not have been the best ingredients to conquer 2020. In a period when we seemed to crave togetherness worldwide, DJs and producers like Kabza De Small and MFR Souls created a sound of hope with amapiano. With its hypnotic melodies and polyphonic singing, amapiano seemed meant to be experienced in company, in a musical version of being together.

Texel tried to create that sense of community with Ziongate, the first amapiano event in the Netherlands, January 2020 in Amsterdam. ‘That was our first and also our last evening for a long time. During the lockdown we continued with live streams, where we also asked dancers, so that you could see how you dance to amapiano from your living room. For example, we showed the Dutch public the new genre and new movements even before the clubs were open.

‘During ADE 2021 we organized ‘Tribes’ in Paradiso. South African DJs such as Culoe De Song and Major League DJz, known for his Amapiano Balcony Live Mixes on YouTube, were hailed as superstars. The great hall was packed with people who had been craving ‘the real deal’ for months.

cornerstone

Dance seems to be the cornerstone of amapiano. Vocalists or DJs are not only expected to be able to dance, but preferably also to do a viral dance with every new single. challenge to create. The obsession with sharing rehearsed dances on social media has gripped Generation Z for a number of years.

Texel: ‘Djs such as DBN Gogo, Uncle Waffles and TxC are followed en masse on channels such as TikTok. It helps that they dance during their sets, it adds an extra dimension. Dancers in the studio are often part of the recordings and they give the producers musical directions so that they can be danced to optimally.’

Despite its rapidly growing popularity, Texel does not see amapiano as a fleeting trend. ‘It’s not a hype that you can jump on for a while and then ignore it. If you only expect hits on a Ziongate night, you’ll be disappointed. There is something hypnotic about Amapiano. You are asked to surrender to DJs who want to go on a musical journey with the audience.’

That sounds like a definition of house music, Texel agrees. ‘Amapiano is also a form of house music and house is of course also black music; Apparently people still need to be made aware of that. The great thing about afrohouse and amapiano is that you can’t ignore the African. The vocals, the language, the percussion: ‘It’s Africa in your face.’ Some call it ‘taking back’.

Black Lives Matter

‘I think there have always been question marks in the Dutch club scene about the lack of black people behind the turntables, in the organization or on the dance floor. But that question became more urgent than ever after George Floyd’s death in the spring of 2020. The rise of Black Lives Matter and mass protests have triggered a global cultural shift. Amapiano came just at the right time.

‘When I go to an average techno or house event in the Netherlands, I am often reminded of what skin color I have and what prejudices people have about it. If only because of how often people ask if they can buy drugs from me. That’s not something I have to worry about at amapiano events.’

A peculiarity of amapiano is that people wonder on which stage the music belongs, says Texel. ‘At the electronic festivals? Or at the afro and hip-hop festivals? In terms of sound, Amapiano falls exactly in between those two styles. But the DJ sets are similar to house DJ sets: they are carefully constructed.

‘It’s different at afro/hip-hop festivals, where DJs often play the biggest hits from the genre in rapid succession. And then seven minutes of listening to an unknown amapiano song with a two-minute organ solo is suddenly very long. And at house and techno events, the bpm (‘beats per minute’, an indication of the tempo of a song, red.) often around 130. So then the average 114 bpm of an amapiano track also falls outside the boat. It still takes a while to find out how amapiano fits best in the current music landscape.’

Despite this, according to Spotify, the Netherlands is already the fifth country to have embraced amapiano, after Nigeria, the US, England and of course South Africa. How does Texel explain its popularity in the Netherlands? ‘That’s because we have a big house culture in the Netherlands and also a lot of different ethnicities. The Netherlands has therefore come into contact with these sounds and rhythms before. We’ve spent years listening to local hip-hop artists influenced by afro, dancehall, bubbling and much more. There is a rhythm in amapiano that you just hear that it will work in the Netherlands.

‘The time is also ripe for it. The generation that grew up with Dutch hip-hop has grown older and seems to be curious about a different kind of event where the ego of the individual is not necessarily celebrated. Amapiano is the perfect introduction for hip-hop aficionados looking for a new sound.”

5x the amapiano sound:

Amanikiniki

Megahit by some of the founders of the genre, MFR Souls and Major League DJz, with vocals by Kamo Mphela and Bontle Smith.

Champion Sound

Focalistic had one of the first crossover hits in amapiano by teaming up with Davido, the Nigerian superstar of Afropop. The music video was shot in London.

Africa Rise

This summer’s amapiano festival hit by DJ and producer Vigro Deep, who shook up the X-Ray tent at Lowlands a few weeks ago.

Etema

Dutch’s first own amapiano track by DJ Waxfiend, Saint Ronil and Dave Nunes.

Getting Late

South African Tyla shows in this super sweet hit that the switch to commercial pop can be made quickly.