AMAPIANO HITS RIGHT NOTES! Rapper Focalistic is enjoying the positive reception his hit single Never Know has received.
IT’S amazing to see how an instrument that comprises of 88 different notes has evolved into a South African sound that is rapidly taking the world by storm.
The amapiano style of house music emerged around 2012.
It’s a hybrid of deep house, jazz and lounge music characterised by synths, airy pads as well as wide and percussive baselines.
While its popularity blew up in the Gauteng, the eight other provinces have rapidly caught up with this wave.
In 2020, the genre experienced increased popularity across the African continent with noted increases in digital streams and chart successes in countries far from its South African origin.
SHA SHA
At the virtual 2020 BET Awards, amapiano artist Sha Sha beat out crossover successes Rema, Celeste and Young T & Bugsey to win the viewer’s choice best new international act award. “I never saw that coming,” she says over Zoom from her home in Johannesburg. “I felt like I was still working toward that type of recognition.”
Sha Sha, who has been recording music in her bedroom since she was 19, got her start when a friend sent one of her songs to a radio station in Zimbabwe. It received airplay and attracted the attention of local producer-singer Audius Mtawarira, who served as a mentor to Sha Sha. Her first single, “Miss Independent,” found success in Zimbabwe and South Africa, where she often traveled to visit her mother before relocating. It’s there she connected with DJ Maphorisa one of South Africa’s most established producers who’s credited on Drake’s “One Dance” and Major Lazer’s “Particula” after talking to a cab driver who put he
How South Africa’s Sha Sha Is Bringing Amapiano Music Into the Future Billboard 3/12/2021 SHA SHA
At the virtual 2020 BET Awards, amapiano artist Sha Sha beat out crossover successes Rema, Celeste and Young T & Bugsey to win the viewer’s choice best new international act award. “I never saw that coming,” she says over Zoom from her home in Johannesburg. “I felt like I was still working toward that type of recognition.”
Sha Sha, who has been recording music in her bedroom since she was 19, got her start when a friend sent one of her songs to a radio station in Zimbabwe. It received airplay and attracted the attention of local producer-singer Audius Mtawarira, who served as a mentor to Sha Sha. Her first single, “Miss Independent,” found success in Zimbabwe and South Africa, where she often traveled to visit her mother before relocating. It’s there she connected with DJ Maphorisa one of South Africa’s most established producers who’s credited on Drake�
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