drowning in a blissful ocean of log drums and keys: 🎹🎹 amapiano a-z 🎹🎹 an ilm poll

That's Breaka - Dololo ft. Kamohelo

Deep London is too smooth for my taste but Breaka is verrrrry nice

Seems like there's a fairly even split between people who prefer the smooth stuff and those who hanker for a bit more welly.
My regular pub gig was all but empty last night so I amused myself and the bar staff with an extended amapiano set featuring both.
The last few times I've played pout amapiano in Bristol, I've had people come up and enthuse about how excited they are about it.

Screw it, I uploaded the mix to Soundcloud in case anyone's interested. Just a bunch of faves slung together:

CHARLIE STOIC - AMAPIANO EXCURSIONS

https://soundcloud.com/charliestoicdj/amapiano-excursions

Feel Le Tee x Myztro - 66
Feel Le Tee x Daliwonga - Dipatje Tsa Felo
Q-Mark, Tpzee, Afrikan Papi - Paris
Vigro Deep - Asijabule (feat. Murumba Pitch & Lady Du)
Obeey Amor, T-Man SA, Bassie and Lady Du - Qo Qo Qo
Musa Keys - Vula Mlomo
Nandy - Kunjani
Mapara A Jazz - John Vuli Gate
DJ Black Low x DJ Saxo Boy - 9 Days
Teno Afrika - Lerato La Bass
DJ Crown Prince, Walshy Fire, Skinny Fabulous - Bang
Tribal Brothers - Genesis
Breaka, Kamohelo - Dololo
Marcus Damon - Spears Of Fire

Thank you!

ooh, and you enabled downloads too! Thank you x 2

Pleasure! Let's hope I don't get sued

love the mix!

Wonderful!

Aww thank you both. I've had it on rotation all weekend and I'm not bored of it yet. Mixing it and hearing it back is also a nice way to explore the genre. I thought mixing amapiano might be a bit boring seeing as those long shaker intros are all pretty similar, but it ended up being a nice lesson in EQ mixing for me

It's also made me appreciate Asijabule by Vigro Deep a whole lot more. There's this amazing light/dark thing going on in that song, with Murumba Pitch's sweet male vocal sections giving way to Lady Du's tough, breathless bars. Really great

Yes, it really is - I had dismissed it from my list (I'm trying to find out what to vote for in this poll still) because I thought I didn't like the slick/soul type stuff but I had to put it back in there and it might even be the one I go for in the end. Maybe I'm getting used to the smooth stuff, I'm also liking Liyangishonela, the last track on Kabza's KOA Part 1 album, more and more lately.

i've only had a brief listen thru most of these so far but nothing has immediately changed my feeling that the Kabza album is now my favourite thing of the year

Gijima is nicely raw and bumpin' tho

feeling Jozi Night too

Madlamini is lush

Amapiano, to me, reminds me of classic dubstep and minimal house in that even the more understated tunes sound absolutely enormous over big speakers. Watching a receptive crowd going ham to this stuff really is something special, especially if they know the moves

I've listened to doglatin's excellent mix twice since yesterday. I think the fact that my favorites are toward the end (Tribal Brothers, Teno Afrika, Marcus Damon) confirms for me that I tend to slightly favor the harder-edged, less smooth amapiano tracks, but really, there isn't a weak moment here

Cheers PP. I believe the last four tracks are from producers/artists outside of South Africa. Tribal Brothers and Marcus Damon are London-based. Breaka is better known for ravey/garagey/dance bobbins. The DJ Crown Prince / Skinny Fabulous track is out of Trinidad, so kind of a soca hybrid. So not for the purists, but it is interesting to hear more and more producers turning their hands to the style and putting their own spins on it

I haven’t been much of a cheerleader in the last couple of weeks, apologies. glad others picked up the slack, very much looking at you dog latin!

so yeah, time flies, but you all still have nine days of feeling, feel-ling your way around in pianoland left.

it pleases me no end that 20 of the 29 poll options have been mentioned as favourites of some kind by one or more of you.
(that even includes the black sheep on my list, which really is only there because it’s the only track with that specific initial letter that was eligible (that is, I had played it once).)

only six on the list, my D, H, M, O, W, and Y entries, haven’t been namechecked at all - but “Dangerous”, “Hamba Nobani”, “Madiba”, “Obrigado”, “Wamuhle” and “Yini Sdakwa” are all worthy of your attention imho.

still enjoying this concept a lot, thank you :D

noticing a lot of amapiano getting a shazam bump if you will in the US, wonder what thats about:

del ieve P - Ezkhala Kahle (feat. Castro & Senzxo)
Konke, Musa Keys & Chley - M'nike (feat. Sayfar)
Soa Mattrix & Mashudu - Mina Nawe (feat. Happy Jazzmen & emotionz DJ)
king temoso - iNkwenkwezi (with Sami'Kay)

“M’nike” is fantastic!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2SLXPZjvkw

a few others ...

ESK Musiq-Stop n go
Don Edward & Xduppy - Skeem Saka (feat. Stay C & Senjay)

^^^these are both pretty rad to me

yes! "Skeem Saka" in particular is top of the bill:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Wxzfrx10fc

another ridiculously good new track is this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38iZlLaaXDk
Toxicated Keys ft. GemValleyMusiQ & Tupla Double 0.7 • Shiki (Piano Anthem)

(GemValleyMusiQ obviously are in this poll with their "Jozi Night" - if you haven't, don't forget to vote for any of the 29 this week!)

ESK Musiq-Stop n go

― xheugy eddy (D-40), Friday, November 4, 2022 5:58 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

this one is exploding on tiktok right now

aw man, I'm not ready. Still have 7 possible winners in my list (starting with 3 A C N P Q T)

but you need to get this done! completely new alphabet sets have aligned themselves over the past couple of weeks alone. amapiano moves fast!

I will, I promise :-)

Waiting for the inevitable comprehensive 3xLP comp of this stuff to materialize somewhere. I can't keep up with the rushing digital river!

the only way this idea might make any kind of sense is if these 3xLP comps came in monthly instalments

Well, it probably won’t be very comprehensive.

https://n-t-s.bandcamp.com/album/amapiano-now-2

??

That works as a snapshot of the genre at a given second in time, but not much else, I'm afraid. My best advise would be to check the amapiano vibes playlist on spotify regularly. It's not totally comprehensive but you do get a feel for the genre and its permutations from week to week.

AmaPiano *Grooves*

very useful playlist, tip of the hat to Spotify

yeah, sorry bout the "vibes". And thanks, breastcrawl!

never be sorry about the vibes, longneck!

Yeah, I voted for Asijabule. It just has so much, that dark/light contrast someone mentioned, it's not just one thing repeating all the time. Thank you again for 2 Months of fun with this, please do more :-)

plus, the light parts made me like the soulful part of amapiano more than I would have predicted in the beginning. So that, too.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I think I voted for Paris but I regret not voting for Asijabule really

I voted for Paris, as it is in my top 5 songs of the year. There are other songs I love in here though (Mmapula and Isphithiphithi in particular!) and quite a few I discovered through this poll, so thanks a lot, breastcrawl! Let's do it again soon.

last call! 58 minutes left to vote for your favourite piano track!

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

14 votes? boo! but still, all good tracks :-)

14 votes ain't bad, think about it. We should do one of these every 3 months

result that someone else loves “Crush Yam”.

ace poll - it introduced me to lots of grest music. what dog latin said....

I started my DJ set last night with some amapiano and got a good bunch of the early doors crowd grooving. My co-DJ whomst I was going B2B with followed it up with some more straight-up (but great) house and people just sort of shrugged and walked off. I couldn't have conceived of something like this happening just a year or so ago

….and we have a result!
thanks to everyone who participated in this. I loved the enthusiasm everyone seemed to be feeling about this awesome genre!
special thanks to the 13 voters (I was nr 14). “Paris” is a worthy winner and there’s a nice spread of votes, with eight killer tracks receiving love, highlighting the awesome variety in the genre - because no, not every amapiano track sounds the same, like at all.

is 13/14 votes a lot? hard to say, 43 people followed the playlist, so I may have expected more, but I have no idea what the going ratio is. I’m still curious about the preferences of those non-voters tho (and about any other feedback). feel free to post them here - the poll is done, but the thread remains!

I voted “Asijabule” myself, out of the 29 options it was my most played track. it’s going to be extremely high on my EOY ballot. it was wonderful to see people warming to it over the course of this poll.
but I have to say, when I played the eight vote-getters just now, I was all in for “Crush Yam” - what a track!

(oh, in case you were wondering about the cinderella option, the one that was only there because it was the only eligible track for that letter of the alphabet (that is, I had played it once): it was “Xigubhu” by Welle SA (<1000 streams on Spotify) - and even that one is good!)