Thread for the AmaPiano awesomeness that is “Baby Are You Coming?” by Zero12finest feat. ThaMagnificent2

oh my god, "Makazi" people! i'm not kidding! don't sleep on this!

that vocal breakdown at 4'25 is e-ve-ry-thing

Loving the aggressive hip hop into Amapiano vibes of Da Les’ Elon Musk, featuring some familiar voices:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ4eWa7v-Bo

moodypiano:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n60B5bPQfx8
Solid T ft. Mr Madumane • Kom Kyk

does this feature the *real* Madumane (ie Maphorisa's rap alias?) or just someone who sounds quite like him and mentions his name a lot? either way, this is one groovy jam.

As a Dutchie, I’m fascinated by the occasional Afrikaans (loan)words and phrases in the lyrics of Zulu/Xhosa/etc music genres. Here the track title is Afrikaans, it means “Come (have a) look”.

Yeah there's a good number of Afrikaans words that have passed in South African English. Braai. Askies. Buckie. Lekker. Not even getting into the food (Boerewors, Vetkoek). When I was staying there the landlord's 5-year-old daughter would be coming to visit us at the cottage, and her English was full of Afrikaans and it was very fun trying to decipher what she was saying. We'd be asking her "did you have a good slaapie Kara ?", "what did you kyked ?". When we returned last year, she had grown up and her English was perfect (and little Boer accent thank God).
I also still can't get enough that South Africans call a traffic light a "robot". 'Short left after robot'.

I forgot an obvious one: voetsek !

one of the most surprising examples to me is “verstaan(a)” (‘understand’) in the Xhosa lyrics of Tresor & Msaki’s “Sondela” (not amapiano obviously).

about that “verkoek”:

https://static.raru.co.za/cover/2014/04/11/130398-l.jpg?v=1397170800

damn, “vetkoek”

does "askies" just mean "I'm sorry"?

yep, same word as “excuse”, but (I think) instead derived from the Dutch “excuus”

the above confirmed ✅

(in Afrikaans it’s spelled “ekskuus” tho, with “askies” being the colloquial version that’s used in other SA languages as well)

dank je!

Busiswa just dropped a new album, My Side of the Story. The tracklist suggests it's very amapiano-heavy.

it must be the December season!

it's good!

i kinda think Makazi is a competitor for best song of the year

beautypiano:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlG_6eqLCuo
Zain SA • Ina Iyeza

How about some TanzaPiano?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJXB8kqKMOk
Marioo ft. Sho Madjozi & Bontle Smith • Mama Amina

(made with generous help from South Africa obviously)

The Busiswa album is good, much better than the forgettable rush job that was her previous, Summer Life, two years ago - but not as good as Highly Flavoured before it imo. Wish she would have made good on the promise of tracks 1 and 3, where (like on “Makazi”) she uses her voice differently. Her singing voice on “Dololo” in particular is nothing short of spectacular. Quite the mission statement, I thought, but apart from “Bonnie & Clyde” she doesn’t really back it up on the rest of the album. Still, “SBWL” and especially “Makazi” are among the best singles of the year and there’s two strong tracks from the Mas/Kabza/Maphorisa camp.

loving this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdkPvFE2wac

Falz ft. Niniola - Squander

prime naijapiano!

got around to Busiswa's My Side of the Story and i pretty much agree with breastcrawl - it's not quite the tour de force that Highly Flavoured was, but still a welcome return to form after Summer Life was such a disappointment

anywhere you can buy 320s for ama or just amazon/itunes?

7digital is probably your best bet

nice 1, can't find everything but there's a decent amount on there.

I'll be giving a talk and doing an amapiano set tomorrow at the school I teach at, so I was just wondering if anyone had any particularly good articles about the genre that they'd like to share? It would be appreciated.
(I thought I'd show the yoof the Shaya! documentary.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B9frOKUwz0

from upthread:

Stumbled upon these two articles while looking for sources
https://mixmag.net/feature/amapiano-south-africa-house-music-movement-gauteng
https://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/music/from-south-africa-to-the-world-why-amapiano-could-be-the-next-dance-music-genre-to-rule-the-clubs-1.1065104

― Nabozo, woensdag 23 september 2020 20:07

Thanks for those! The Mixmag piece in particular is interesting.

― No mean feat. DaBaby (breastcrawl), woensdag 23 september 2020 21:35

I'll be giving a talk and doing an amapiano set tomorrow at the school I teach at

would love to hear more about this! what age are the students? is this part of a larger curriculum or more of a one-time thing?

The 20 Best Amapiano Songs of 2020 according to OkayAfrica, the blurbs are quite interesting:

https://www.okayafrica.com/best-amapiano-songs-of-2020/?rebelltitem=15#rebelltitem15

About breaking amapiano worldwide:

https://www.okayafrica.com/amapiano-who-will-introduce-to-the-world-op-ed/

(of those 20, the best for me are unquestionably "Ilog Drum" and "Jazzidisciples (Zlele)", both nominated for the EOY <<hint, hint>>)

would love to hear more about this! what age are the students? is this part of a larger curriculum or more of a one-time thing?

Thanks! They're between 19 and 63, lol, with most of them being in their late teens, early twenties. The school is part of the Norwegian "folkehøgskole" system, which means there are no exams and thus no set curriculum, but it's geared towards humanist values and lots of teaching of philosophy, literature, art, international politics, creative writing, etc, which basically means I can do whatever I want to, lol. (We're lucky enough to have stayed open throughout the pandemic thus far.)

and thanks, breastcrawl!
What would you guys say was the very first ama-hit to break into the mainstream?

more articles:

https://www.musicinafrica.net/magazine/amapiano-what-it-all-about

https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/the-latest/amapiano/12771394 (short but quite incisive)

(Mixmag piece def the best tho imo)

pretty sure that was Kwiish SA's "Iskhathi (Gong Gong)" (first months of 2019). MFR Souls ft. TallArseTee's "Bamb’ikhanda" was a prettyy crucial track as well, but I don't think it actually charted.

these were my first ramblings about it on Rolling Afropop back then: rolling Afropop / Afrobeats / Afrodance 2019

xp

thanks - that's great stuff

thanks for the response, longneck. I hate to be one of those north americans who romanticizes scandinavian social policy without having ever been there, but those schools sound great and it would be nice to live in a culture where lifelong learning was considered a good thing

finally getting around to kabza de small's i am the king of amapiano: sweet & dust and oh my god why is this 3 hours long lmao

gotta listen all the way till the end tho - there’s a weak patch in the middle (those guitar tracks), but the best tracks are in the Dust section at the back

have just hit the guitar tracks patch and yeah these tracks are just too chill even for amapiano. i would love this guitar noodling if there was a little more going on but it seems to just aim for ambience rather than balearic-esque transcendence

hope you made it through that section. would be worth it.

i made it through the whole album and it was overall pleasant of course but truly too much as a whole, hard to pick up on the back section being the strongest part bc of how it all blends together in an album that long

late advice, but: maybe try “Ilog Drum” and “Balanc’Ise” - best tracks on the album imo, and very different from what’s going on in the first half

anyway, here to celebrate the fact that “Jazzidisciples (Zlele)” placed in the EOY, at #65, too low of course, but I’ll take it.

reposting the video in its honour:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGvAKp3fOqg

loved this from D-40 on the rollout thread:

the reason "Jazzidisciples" stands out so much to me is that it felt like a dramatic shift in the sound amapiano had been moving towards -- where earlier records held onto this forward momentum, they figured out how to make a record that felt almost still and static while not rhythmically being that way at all -- all negative space, slow-motion. i think that's why it became such a huge record. If you're looking from a distance it might seem like a minute change, but if you're following all the records that become hits it had this really revelatory feeling, like oh look at all the possibilities this is opening up

btw, this thread will still be here to be enjoyed, but the main action this year is expected to be on this here new Rolling thread:

MZANSI MUZIQ 2021 🇿🇦 Rolling South Africa thread

that is a great post

"ilog drum" is so ridiculously good

really enjoying "bathandwa" from the mfr souls album. that album's been out since august of last year(?) but i guess i wasn't fated to hear this track until it got a video and could thus reach my ears via youtube recommendation algorithm/overlord

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLFULXPUqgk

yes, “Bathandwa” is a fabulous track.

Musical Kings is one of those big amapiano albums that I still haven’t listened to in full even tho all the tracks I have heard are great - see also DJ Stokie’s My Journey. they’re just so damn long!