When Die Antwoord posted the video for "Enter the Ninja," viewers weren’t sure if this trio of Afrikaans rappers with strange haircuts was some kind of made-for-the-net joke. Millions of views later, the rap-rave crew released their debut album $O$ and...
Spoek Mathambo is the Afro-futurist musical alter ego of Johannesburg kid Nthato Mokgata, and he's got a new sound. His brand of beats includes a whole lot of bass, a touch of cumbia, some electro and freaky house music, dubstep and a little something...
While taking a break from surfing, Capetown Jazz music students Dominic Peters and David Poole locked themselves in their room with a double bass, a sax and some synths. When they came out, they had their first album, Caught In The Loop, a live...
This summer, the South African indie rock group The Parlotones got on the world stage alongside A-listers Alicia Keys, Black Eyed Peas, John Legend and Shakira at the official FIFA World Cup South Africa Kick-Off Celebration. Currently, the band is...
Check out the music video for "Life Design" from South Africa's The Parlotones' 2009 album Stardust Galaxies -- and stay tuned for their new European album release this summer!
The soothing voice of Kahn Morbee from the South African pop rock band The Parlotones laments about a woman from his past in the passionate track “Giant Mistake” from their third album A World Next Door to Yours. While manipulating time and space in a...
Looking to add a little pop and pizzazz to your band name, but you hate thinking? There's an easy way! First, think of a noun. Now make it neon. And you're done! Wasn't that fun?
So many -- too...
When Die Antwoord posted their first video to YouTube last month, viewers weren't sure if this trio of Afrikaans rappers, with a penchant for dressing in neon, was some kind of made-for-the-net joke. Was...
South African electropop group Die Heuwels Fantasties are into some pretty forward looking stuff. They started their current band in order to get away from the guitar-driven music they'd been playing, ...
I'm usually not into"making of" videos about videos, but the Xhosa-language hip hop group Driemanskap kept me on the edge of my seat for twelve whole minutes with their new behind-the-scenes...
Neo soul singer Zaki Ibrahim's single "Ansomnia" will be included on the soundtrack for the Tyler Perry film adaptation of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf.
We...
South Africa jazz house group Goldfish took their animated video style to a whole new level on "We Come Together." Now you'll feel like you're playing a nautical, Star Wars video game. And it's 1985.
South Africa's prince of Township Tech, poster child for Afro-futurist electropop, husband of Sweden's Gnucci Banana, a one-man genre-blender who paints with music and composes with colors...Spoek Mathambo is simply one of the most exciting young...
In his long bill snapback and porno moustache, “The Pirate of the Caravan Park” is getting ready for big things. Jack Parow is a Cape Town rapper who, along with frequent collaborators Die Antwoord, is shaking up the South African internet with the...
On Sunday night in New York, with the hot sky threatening to pour down on Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park at any moment, a multi-culti crowd sporting big hair and flailing arms got tremendously down. By...
At a time when just about every new band dabbles in electro-this or synth-that, Taxi Violence is a blast of pure classic rock from Cape Town, South Africa. Muscular guitars, plaintive-yet-growling vocals, drumstick-splintering backbeat -- what you hear...
No one on the corner has swagger like Jack Parow, South African rapper who drops braggadocios knowledge in “Cooler as Ekke” – “cooler than me.” If it weren’t for Jack’s awesome long bill snapback and his bevy of South African beauties, we’d be pretty...
South Africa’s Jack Parow shows his serious side in “Tussen Stasies,” or “between stations.” Featuring a cameo from Die Heuwels Fantasties (kind of like SA’s Postal Service), Parow displays the versatility that has earned him international recognition.
Die Heuwels Fantasties, known as “the happy hollows” in layman’s terms, are complete show offs. The South African electronic band and graphic designers kept the “Noorderlig” mv under wraps for eight months. The lifelike sci-fi imagery and attention to...
South Africa’s Die Heuwels Fantasties has a knack for innovative music videos, and “Hyg Duiwel” is another on that list. Levitation, writing bodies, and slow-mo running probably sound a Halloween film,...
aKING knows where the wild things are. In “The Runaround,” the South African melodic rock band stimulates our imagination with dreamy animated images and an even dreamier sound.
“Crocs are zef. Flat-tops are zef. Wearing a cowboy hat to the club, that’s quite zef,” says Chopper Charlie, a South African blogger and DJ, while munching on a pizza at a seaside Cape Town café. “Ed...
For those who imagine South Africa’s music scene to be all tinkly guitar pop and Ladysmith Black Mambazzo: guess again. In South Africa, there’s one sound that blasts loudest from township stereo systems...
Seventeen years after the end of apartheid and South Africa is a wild place to be. It has modern booming cities and endless shantytowns. It has strong traditional cultures, and jet-setting generation of tech-savvy, fashion-forward young people making...
In 1994, the people of South Africa voted freely for the first time in history, electing Nelson Mandela as president, ending 46 years under the oppressive apartheid system of white-only rule and enforced segregation. That very same year, the group Boom...
Take a second and try to picture this: A heavyset black man in office clothes is singing over a fast-paced beat. The lyrics are in an African language, but every few lines, he says the words “baby” and...
If you’ve been searching for some raging rock that doesn’t spill over into testosterone-induced madness, your search stops here. Here actually means Cape Town, South Africa, where Taxi Violence have been blowing away club audiences for seven years....
Last summer, Kyle Brinkmann, who makes music as Das Kapital, was having a tough day. Maybe it was love troubles, or just the pains of being a 19-year-old DJ in Capetown, South Africa. But he took the...
Collaboration is a kind of magic. Two distinct creative worlds coexist for a moment, providing a glimpse into a new artistic possibilities. And how much cooler is it when the collaborators come from...
Those fertile crosswinds blowing through South Africa's urban centers that produced Spoek Mathambo and Die Antwoord have spawned yet another exquisite monstrosity. Johannesburg electronic pop group The...
Johannesburg emcee Mmaphuthi Morule AKA Thabile Rasa had our ears all to herself when we heard her getting rather nasty on "Beauty Shop," her take on a remix of "Barber Shop" by Riky Rick. Don't worry...
South African zef-rave rap trio Die Antwoord summons all things Avante-garde in the dark, dance-inducing “I Fink U Freeky.” If the dizzying synth rips and that pulsing, heartbeat-like bass line don’t draw you in then the crawling rodents, spastic...
Bittereinder means "diehard" in Afrikaans, but this SA award-winning, chart-topping Pretoria trio is more experimental than the blingy moniker implies. Their 2009 debut album 'n Ware Verhaal ("a true story") is full of interesting, delightfully bizarre...
I hate the horror genre and I’ve never watched a single scary movie to the end. So I’m the basically the worst person to review Spoek Mathambo’s second album Father Creeper, which is a masterpiece of...
His name means skeleton in Afrikaans, and he came to both terrify and delight. With his second album Father Creeper on the label that put out Nirvana, and an omnivorous sound that's equal parts hip-hop,...
His name means skeleton in Afrikaans, and he came to both terrify and delight. But in portrait, he mostly just delights. With his second album Father Creeper on the label that put out Nirvana, and an...
It's not every day a booty-rapper gives a TED Talk, and not every Sub Pop signee who boasts a British day school pedigree and medical training. But South Africa native, Swedish resident, and global...
South Africa’s Spoek Mathambo invites us to a party we definitely won’t be tardy to. His single “Let Them Talk” is a clever clash of “Hey Ya!” spontaneity and “Thriller” creepy moments. The mash up of mellow 50s-inspired groove and the surprising,...
Name: Ben Sharpa
Where he’s from: Cape Town, South Africa
Genre: Hip-Hop feat. electronic madness
Most Like: Death Grips, DELS
Sounds like: If an earthquake had lyrics
Since getting BBC...
Name: Nakhane Touré
Where he's from: Johannesburg, South Africa
Genre: Post-Folk
When he started: 2012
Most like: Mirel Wagner, Dirty Projectors
Sounds like: Modernist folk with subtle soul...
Name: Kwesta
Where He’s From: Johannesburg, SA
Genre: Hip-hop
Most Similar: P-Diddy, Rick Ross
When He Started: 2003
Sounds Like: Party and Bullsh*t
Kwesta is newbie MC from Johannesburg with tight party rhymes you'd mistake for New...
It's not often the you interview the drummer of a band on their own. They often hang back and seem to deliberately skirt the spotlight. So, in the case of our interview with Richard Wouters, who keeps...
Name: Yolanda Zama
Where She's From: South Africa
Genre: Afro-folk soul (or Afro-coustic soul)
Most Similar: Miriam Makeba meets Les Nubians
When She Started: 2010
Sounds Like: Smooth...
Name: Petite Noir née: Yannick Iluga
Where He's From: Based in Capetown, South Africa, but originally from the Congo
Genre: Electronic-soul or even better, Afro-tronica
Most Similar: A swinger's party featuring Arthur Mafokate, The Week-nd,...
For Cape Town-born, Johannesburg-based MC AKA, the hate has been flowing for some time. Ever since he won two South African Music Awards for his album AltAr Ego last year, the jealousy has rolled in...
Ok, Sweden. You’ve already proved that you're the best at music. You secretly run the pop music industry. You have all the dreamiest indie rock girls. You have the Swedish House Mafia, whose annual take in DJ fees rivals the GDP of certain small...
Name: Moroka
Where He's From: London & South Africa
Genre: Kwaito, global bass
Most Similar: Diplo, Spoek Mathambo
Sounds Like: A
While Mad Decent ousted global bass from the underground, one of its trailblazers was chilling in the...
Name: Fruits & Veggies
Where They're From: Durban, South Africa
Genre: afro-punk, reggae, ska
Most Similar: early No Doubt, Gogol Bordello
Sounds Like: You just quit a job you hated and want...
Laura Mvula is a major standout in the UK's latest swarm of soulful songstresses. Armed with her haunting, minimal, yet quite complicated single "She," Mvula is getting props from everyone from Jamie Cullum to the Brits Critics Choice Awards to producer...
2012, let's not even get into it. You are over and we are really fine with that. Barack Obama got re-elected and, hopefully, we'll never have to think about Mitt Romney again, but other than that,...
South Africa's very own Civil Twilight lands in Studio Iggy for a brief respite from their fall 2012 tour. Let their atmospheric vibes serenade you into a quiet escape from the world, and maybe, just maybe, it won't matter if there's anybody else out...
Even the big-brimmed, South African zef MC Jack Parow is getting into the Christmas spirit. In “Merry Xmas,” we find him in the same places as always – in front of a pastel-colored establishment, chilling in a pool, and hanging out with hot ladies. Yes,...
