Amapiano emerged out of either Durban or Joburg in the recent 5 years or so. Jury is still out on which city – I’ve met Durbanites who swear on the graves of their ancestors that the sound is Durban, as well as Joburgians who say it was developed in Soweto, and popularised in the legendary Poniaza club (bigup bigup!!).
Musically, it is a response to the previous sound to dominate the South African scene for some years, Gqom, which evolved out of the rougher side of South African House, defined by a relentless and repetitive dark energy that might be described as African Berghain hard techno (though I am very aware of the problems of describing African electronic music by Western terms, it is what Western audiences can understand and relate to).
Amapiano swings the vibes hammer in the other direction: toward more “accessible” musicality, more melody, and drops the BPM from 130 down to exactly 114 (I would love to interview the pioneers on why this exact bpm which all Amapiano tracks seem to strictly adhere to).
Stylistically it is a superb vision of African Futurism which is decidedly the opposite of the futurism of European electronic avant garde, which is all about a REJECTION of history: minimalist bleeps and bloops that try to divorce itself from past genres. In stark contrast, Amapiano EMBRACES all of the African and Afro-diasporic modern traditions: including recognisable influences from Jazz, Reggae, Dancehall, Hip Hop, R’n’B, and even chart Pop.
But make no mistake: this music is revolutionary, in a structural sense. Amapiano turns many conventions on its head, most importantly, changing the relationship between the lower and higher ends, and reversing the roles played by the hats and the bass.
In Western modern dance music, the bass kick provides a constant repeating pattern (nearly always a 4/4 lol) on top of which higher frequencies float, doing variations within the sameness. The central passages of Amapiano tracks turns this on its head: the constant repeating patterns are done with the highs, such as melodic refrains, and it is the BASS which does variations within the sameness. Like the Mama Ngoma drum of the Congo, largest and heaviest of the family of drums, always doing the SOLOS, I believe this is a reconnection with ancestral African musical heritage.
Some people in Europe who are accustomed to edgy hardcore menacing moods in their club music seem to think Amapiano is too soft and “pleasant”… But they just don’t get it 🙂
For some reason the soundcloud embed isn’t working at the moment, so here are ghetto ass links to the 3 parts series 😀
NGOMA SOUND 