Contemporary South African music

zhao

there are no accidents
i am now thoroughly addicted to Kwaito. must.... find.... more....

any online shops or forum for modern african music anyone know of?

how you liking your stay Mr. Sloane? guess you are having too much fun to log on here :)
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
i am now thoroughly addicted to Kwaito. must.... find.... more....

any online shops or forum for modern african music anyone know of?

how you liking your stay Mr. Sloane? guess you are having too much fun to log on here :)

hehe it's good so far, quite cold though! Just been buying CDs for two days lol, fuck having to eat :)

J x
 

bassbeyondreason

Chtonic Fatigue Syndrome
Anyone with Sky should be on the lookout for "Mzansi Jams" on OBE (Channel 159 or so). Seems to be a fairly good indicator of what's good down there (and the production values/lack thereof are just beautiful!)
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
nationalgallerykids.jpg


http://mistersloane.blogspot.com/

Every department of your mind is to be programmed by u and unless u assume your rightful responsibility and begin to programme your own mind the world will programme it for u, volume one.

Tracklisting :

Denzlyn, Jemilla and Zarijess from Paternoster
How We Roll : KONFAB feat. Jaak
Andapende : Brikz
Oboma anda pende : Amakoporosh
Do It : Bleksom
Sister Bethina : Mgarimbe
Dikuku Tsa Mumsy : DJ Walker featuring Senyaka
Denzlyn, Jemilla and Zarijess from Paternoster
Extension 2 : DJ Cleo
Bloemfontein Funk : DJ Cleo
Gabz To Mbabane : DJ Cleo
Ndiya Ndiya : Zulu Naja
Durbans Dance : DJ Cleo
Feel The Music Ft Theo : Revolution
Love Me Tonite (Just For Tonite) : DJ Bobo
I May : DJ Cleo feat Jodi Gold
Goodbye Ft DJ What What : DJ Cleo
Denzlyn, Jemilla and Zarijess from Paternoster

more liner notes, pictures, photos and links at blog address. Enjoy more!
Picture by Dr Paddy Glackin.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
first time playing kwaito out last night. crowd was going crazy. there was synchronized dancing going for some time, saw these people really trying to drunkenly work out a sequence :D and of course the circle thing. going from Cumbia to Kwaito works pretty well - all them crazy latin horns get people hyped, and then when they are up hit them below the belt with the massive bass :D

and at 4AM confessions riddim made me cry behind the decks. again.
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
first time playing kwaito out last night. crowd was going crazy. there was synchronized dancing going for some time, saw these people really trying to drunkenly work out a sequence :D and of course the circle thing. going from Cumbia to Kwaito works pretty well - all them crazy latin horns get people hyped, and then when they are up hit them below the belt with the massive bass :D

and at 4AM confessions riddim made me cry behind the decks. again.

That sounds great Zhao, are you gonna be doing that night as a regular thing?
 

zhao

there are no accidents
oh last night wasn't official ngoma party... was just for a birthday. ngoma 01 is on the 24th of next month. but the club made a lot of money last night and wants me/us to do a regular thing... we'll see.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
top music, no?

i've been into house music for a mad long time, and really must say that this african house music is by far my favorite. it's just the sexiest, grooviest, most pumping yet at the same time laid back (thanks to the 105 BPM) sound EVER. and oh ofcourse the vocals are so cool. like hip-house Times TEN.

what is astonishing are the amazing choices these artists and producer make, they seem to get everything right, and JUST right, just perfect.

the songs are full of life, often with sweet melodies, but also very minimal and bare-boned, riding that perfect balance. the production is not show-offish tricked-out, like millions of tech-house producers in the west, to make up for lack of musical ideas -- yeah i'll just do all this unnecessary intricate programming and add a bunch of weird electronic noises and no one will notice that the track will be boring as fuck. WRONG!

Kwaito's thick rolling basslines are just Sublime with capital S (meaning so good it's scary), the drums sounds are fucking perfect -- do you think they sample real drums? you never hear stupid key-board present sounds like you do all the time in western house music... the songs are HUGE and mostly happy and celebritory, to be sure, but they sometimes contain another layer of almost melancholy, of heart-ache, of a joy arrived at through loss... and sometimes that ominous, dark-clouds-on-the-horizon feeling that i love... acheived by a simple sample, or keyboard line. fucking EPIC.

so my question is, HOW or WHY do they get it so fucking perfect? for instance the "diva" vocals NEVER sound cheesy, but always so swee, soulful and good. i don't think it's enough, not to mention cliche(d) and stereotypical, to say that "they" just have it in their blood. maybe that's it, if by "blood" i mean musical heritage, ancestry -- the same ancestry that house music fucking came from in the first place. other than that i'm completely at a loss right now of how a recently liberated people can make unmistakably better house than people who have been doing it for 30 years. ok I don't want to get into any fights: not BETTER necessarily, but let's just say house music of a top-notch quality.

and I'm not even going to mention Afro-Hiphop in this post... fuck!
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
i've been into house music for a mad long time, and really must say that this african house music is by far my favorite. it's just the sexiest, grooviest, most pumping yet at the same time laid back (thanks to the 105 BPM) sound EVER. and oh ofcourse the vocals are so cool. like hip-house Times TEN.

what is astonishing are the amazing choices these artists and producer make, they seem to get everything right, and JUST right, just perfect.

the songs are full of life, often with sweet melodies, but also very minimal and bare-boned, riding that perfect balance. the production is not show-offish tricked-out, like millions of tech-house producers in the west, to make up for lack of musical ideas -- yeah i'll just do all this unnecessary intricate programming and add a bunch of weird electronic noises and no one will notice that the track will be boring as fuck. WRONG!

Kwaito's thick rolling basslines are just Sublime with capital S (meaning so good it's scary), the drums sounds are fucking perfect -- do you think they sample real drums? you never hear stupid key-board present sounds like you do all the time in western house music... the songs are HUGE and mostly happy and celebritory, to be sure, but they sometimes contain another layer of almost melancholy, of heart-ache, of a joy arrived at through loss... and sometimes that ominous, dark-clouds-on-the-horizon feeling that i love... acheived by a simple sample, or keyboard line. fucking EPIC.

so my question is, HOW or WHY do they get it so fucking perfect? for instance the "diva" vocals NEVER sound cheesy, but always so swee, soulful and good. i don't think it's enough, not to mention cliche(d) and stereotypical, to say that "they" just have it in their blood. maybe that's it, if by "blood" i mean musical heritage, ancestry -- the same ancestry that house music fucking came from in the first place. other than that i'm completely at a loss right now of how a recently liberated people can make unmistakably better house than people who have been doing it for 30 years. ok I don't want to get into any fights: not BETTER necessarily, but let's just say house music of a top-notch quality.

and I'm not even going to mention Afro-Hiphop in this post... fuck!

I think it's alot to do with the cheapness and quality of weed (dagga) out there, to be really basic about it. Certainly with alot of this stuff it seems to be the Zulu rather than the Soto or Khosa kids who are coming up with the really kicking beats, and I can only imagine that the (still) ingrained rituals of Zulu life have a deep bearing on the music that's being made, y'know, removal from society and circumcision at 14 is still a rite that everyone does...I think it's also that mentality where people are just surrounded by music, so you get it all constantly, but, really? I still don't know enough yet, all I'm getting is from reading.

Alot of this stuff seems to be coming out of Durban which is a 6 hour drive away from Johannesburg but is on the coast, hot, and has a large Indian population, I haven't been there though so I dunno how mixed it is. Capetown is very mixed but isn't really kicking as much.

Alot of it also has to do with the coming-out-of-oppression thing. Suddenly with kwaito, kids could hear music being sung in their own language - streetslang called tsotsi-taal ( literally gang speak ) on records, which had just never happened before, and I think that sense of liberation has led to a real musical focus. Kwaito is kinda dying now - it's been extant since the early 90s, all the stuff on TV was just dross - but this dance type stuff is really kicking. Interestingly alot of the kwaito artists now seem to have at least one, more traditional, kwela or Mbaqanga style track on their albums, so it's coming full circle quickly.

Being brought up in churches has alot to do with it as well I'd imagine.
 
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