🎹🎹PİANO! PİANO!🎹🎹 - a song appreciation thread for “eMcimbini” by Kabza De Small & DJ Maphorisa ft. Aymos, Samthing Soweto, Mas Musiq & Myztro

Aymos finally releases two tracks of his own, and one is with Kabza:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IezhJlGIL0
Aymos ft. Kabza de Small • Iparty Yam

The Daliwonga album is out. Did anyone listen yet?

oh wow, I didn’t know! he’s great on everything I’ve heard him on this year, so colour me stoked.

listened to it this morning. very good album (another one!), although song-wise I don’t think it’s on the level of the Mas Musiq one. really like the rich percussion on these tracks.

It's more of a vibe, but it sounds like something that might grow on me if I let it. Daliwonga's voice is pure bliss.

mas musiq album is very nice but also sooo long

New Sha Sha, produced by Kabza & Maphorisa:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-khYk8xMNE
Sha Sha • Woza

It's December alright:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qPiqniM9kM
Kabza De Small & DJ Maphorisa ft. Tresor • Funu

goddamn, Tresor, sheeesh

so according to iTunes, ^this is from a 14-track album from these three due in February O_O

good lord, he also has a solo album coming out in January called Motion

I'm catching up on /revisiting this year's singles and he should really be a big ILM obsession, looking forward to starting a dedicated thread in 2021

keep it coming, Kabz!

Kabza (and to a much lesser extent Maphorisa) is all over the new DJ Stokie album as well, which I have yet to listen to. Lots of Daliwonga on there too.

As for Tresor, he dropped several pre-album songs in the past few months - I posted “Zwakala” on the Sun-El thread, but since then we’ve had “Dancing With The Moon” and “Walk Thru Fire”.

Meanwhile, there’s a superb new Samthing Soweto EP to enjoy, with De Mthuda producing instead of K&M. Check the Sun-El thread for more!

yeah those three tracks are the "this year's singles" I was alluding to -- excellent stuff. There's also "Thrill," which is maybe a little less exciting.

And don't worry, I have the Sun-El thread bookmarked. I just can't post anything as I've only managed to listen to maybe half a dozen tracks combined from the new Sun-El and Samthing projects :/

a little bit of context:
https://www.musicinafrica.net/magazine/sa-scorpion-kings-makers-and-tresor-announce-new-album-release-funu

I made a Spotify playlist with (almost) everything posted in the MZANSI MUZIQ 2021 🇿🇦 Rolling South African thread as well as South(ern) African tracks posted this year on other threads, like this one:

ILM rolling 🇿🇦 Mzansi MusiQ 2021 🇸🇿 🇳🇦

the Rumble In The Jungle album (Kabza x Maphorisa with Tresor) just dropped

interview with DJ Maphorisa on amapiano:

https://www.okayafrica.com/dj-maphorisa-scorpion-kings-interview/

her doesn't mention his new EP with Tyler ICU (just three tracks, for a change). this is the hit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39xp8P40eyY
DJ Maphorisa & Tyler ICU ft. Sir Trill, Daliwonga & Kabza De Small • Banyana

on collaborating with Kabza:

with amapiano, I didn't want to interfere much by introducing too many new elements. I was already a fan of the sound. Back at the studio with Kabza, I would study him while he did his thing and then step in where I'm mostly good at — songwriting and recording vocals. We had two different chemistries that benefitted from each other. We really vibed in studio, and as a result, composed a lot of music and experimented with new sounds.

on gqom vs amapiano:

I knew that this was a sound that would take South Africa to the world. There's a lot that you can do with amapiano — you can make it soulful, funky, dusty and hard or jazz it up. At some point, I knew that gqom would reach its sell-by date because it was fast-paced and dark. I find that once a genre becomes dark, the songs end up sounding the same. Gqom was dope but I also felt like it was, only, for certain people. However, with amapiano, I realised quite early on that there was a lot that we could do with it.

"Banyana" and it's eh... source material(s) are being discussed in the Rolling Mzansi 2021 thread btw

master at work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FArU_40irVs

Mambisa II, the new Mas Musiq album, is fantastic, as good as any of the Kabza x Maphorisa albums, if not better – for one, it has lots of post-“Emcimbini” tracks with beautiful vocals (Aymos, Daliwonga, and Mlindo all show up, Sha Sha doesn’t, but Nia Pearl and Nicole Elocin do instead), feel free to take your pick and post some...

...but I’ve been looking for this Joni ever since I saw and heard the crew working on it live and direct on Madumane=Maphorisa’s Instagram live stream in early August:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv0AorbSFXQ
Mas Musiq ft. Madumane, Daliwonga, Vyno Miller, Kabza De Small & Myztro • Joni

It was all of the above (minus Kabza, so the groundwork had already been laid) together in a small studio (no facemasks, shared vaping, aargh), adding verses and ad-libs on the spot. Thought for sure they were going to drop this monster the very next day, but no. Kept checking YouTube to see if someone had posted that session, again no. Guess they were waiting for the “December” season...

― kiss some penis reference (breastcrawl), woensdag 11 november 2020 22:36

turns out an excerpt of that session was on YouTube all along, unfortunately most of the recording had been done here already - still, for posterity (and the vapours!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKCzqQ3kwGc

everybody, rock your body
everybody, rock your body right
*Kabza’s back, alright!*

all four tracks on his new Ziwangale EP are great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MplCQIVI68
Kabza De Small ft. DJ Tira, Young Stunna, Dladla Mshunqisi, Felo Le Tee, Beast & Dj Exit_sa • Ziwa Ngale