Amapiano…..are you playing it?

Who’s hip to this genre from South Africa? Who likes it? Who hates it? Who’s “meh”? Is it Balearic? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
What tracks/producers are you feeling?

Here’s a pretty popular one:

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my daughter is, because i bought her a bunch of records for christmas off a list she gave me.
Her mates love it, im told. Shes in her 20s and its wild to me to see that some of her favourite records are things that people of my generation would either never have heard of due to their obscurity. The internet’s not all bad and the kids, they’re alright.

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I enjoy listening to amapiano as I walk around the city. Personally, I relate to it like I do with drum n bass - something for walking not dancing. Teno Afrika is worth checking out

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I enjoy it in small doses. I don’t feel I could listen to it all night but I can’t listen to any one genre all night.

I find it’s been working in my sets as a bridge from ployrhythmic stuff at lower tempo’s to 4 on the floor stuff as it doesn’t really have any pronounced kicks.

The bass lines are also good for making dancers feel into their movement. The lack of kick drums makes the bass lines really hit hard. That said, they all sound like the same bass formula.

It’ll be interesting to see where the genre goes.

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I’m planning to play some on Saturday with some afrobeat old and new thrown in with some dancehall. Just been digging around to see what suits me but Pabi Cooper and Busta 929 are floating my boat. Those waaaaay too long intros though…

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Stumbled across Palms Trax Residency mix which included some in amongst other S African stuff - there was some interesting, different and refreshing tracks on there not sure if the ones in question fall under the Ampiano banner thiugh

Agree with this. I’m living in Zimbabwe at the moment and you hear it everywhere. I like the bass feel and people move to it, but it is all very similar and after about half an hour I’m dying for more variety.

Hi Rob! Those waaaaaay to long intros are now a thing of the past with the handy dandy Rekordbox ™ wave editor!! Efficient and user friendly! Now you can simply remove those flat bits from all your digitally quantized tracks to keep your dancers taking selfies and Shazaming your tracks all night!!

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Triple meh x :ribbon::five::bikini::spider_web::wilted_flower::rat:

Listening to an Amapiano mix is a perfect way for workout. I would highly recommend trying this! Pulsating rhythms and ridiculous calls / snare rolls before the drops always put a smile on my face.

Is there a particular mix you recommend.

Pasting a link on its own line seems to be the best way to go. Links in text on this forum don’t stand out very well.

Here’s one that had some cuts that I tracked down for my sets.

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Thanks! I’ve been intrigued by your comments on Amapiano.

Clicking through I see that tull’ski puts up playlists on Spotify and the Spotify itself does its autobot selection routine for Amapiano. I’ll catch up someday. Kinda impressed by tull’skik’s old school t-shirt right from the start.

South African music is always so distinctive. I’ll admit to times of obsession with it and times of can’t quite connect. Most South African jazz, though, is almost always welcome.

I’ll find out about Amapiano now!

Enjoyed that mix from tull’ski considerably more than I anticipated. At the cool, nice’n’easy end of the Amapiano spectrum I’m guessing. I could get an idea of how you might play that in a set, although I can’t honestly say it would be something I’d spin for the most part. Just about nothing I could identify as South African about it.

Maybe I’ll follow @nowickidj’s suggestion and try working out to it. Anything that gets me working out has something to be said for it. Maybe tomorrow.

For now, I think I’ll give myself some mbaqanga!

I had a monthly with Tull’ski for a decade playing a wide variety of music. He’s an old school Toronto DJ.

As for Amapiano, it’s a regional sub genre of deep house that has caught on around the globe. Besides (sometimes) vocals in regional dialects, it really doesn’t have much obvious or stereotypical sounds that would make one think it was “African”, per se.

I’m playing it in varied sets but not more than a couple tunes in a set and I use them to progress towards the peak of the set’s arc.

I like Tull’ski’s set as well but a whole hour of the genre gets a bit tedious.

This one has been doing it for me!

Amapiano Mix

Also this NTS compilation is really good…

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

Happy Monday!

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This is got a bit of Amapiano at the end but holy hell it’s fun! Dancehall, African, chunky beats……I wanna go to that party!!

Sorry for the cross forum posting here, but there was some information about it and docs and other stuff in this thread that i don’t want to post again.

It’s all good as they say (when they don’t know what else to say). But you should know that you are responsible for getting me to sign up to the Test Pressing forum. At least I used my other DJ name, JackdawVersion. I’ll figure out whether to thank you or curse you later when I’ve found out how much more time I spend obsessing about music. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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I love it. It’s the Shepard’s tone of genres to me. Each track somehow continuously keeps building and building and stringing you along, but never feels like it peaks. The log drum sound and incredibly hype and energetic vocals really do it for me. I don’t really play it when DJing, but only because it’s too different from most of what I tend to play.

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