Фирма Awesome Tapes From Africa

Amapiano Selections, дебютный альбом ди-джея и продюсера Тено Африка, дает слушателям, не связанным с экономикой онлайн-релизов движения, представление о высокопроизводительной природе Amapiano, которая породила отчетливую типологию под своим большим зонтом. Двадцатилетний Лютендо Радувха провел большую часть своей жизни, путешествуя между разными городками на окраинах Йоханнесбурга и Претории в провинции Гаутенг. Палитра стилей Amapiano на альбоме отражает эти влияния.

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The rags-to-riches chronicle of Penny Penny's life would be remarkable if he had only released his smash debut Shaka Bundu and packed houses for a few years. But the inimitable South African singer and dancer known for his trademark top ponytail and emphatic anthems was no one-hit wonder. In the aftermath of Shaka Bundu's nationwide explosion, far beyond his country the album resonated with ever bigger audiences. He performed up and down the continent, building fanbases in more than a dozen countries. So his sophomore album Yogo Yogo - released in 1996 - solidified Penny Penny's standing in pop music nationally and provided new energy to his pan-African stadium-filling adventures. "I was very busy between Shaka Bundu and Yogo Yogo. Shows every week, local and outside the country. There was no relaxing from 1995 until 1999." The album also reflects the era in which it emerged. If Shaka Bundu arrived triumphantly amid newfound political freedom in South Africa with the end of Apartheid and Nelson Mandela's election, Yogo Yogo was a next level expression for the maturing artist. He wanted to get a message out. Composed with Joe Shirimani, who also produced the album, the sound and compositional style echoes the earlier recording but the topical nature of the lyrics became more deliberate, more didactic. In the song "Ingani" Penny proclaims, we are all one people even though we may speak different languages, we are all Nguni, a larger historical grouping that includes many of the ethnic groups in modern South Africa. "Kulani Kulani," which means grow up, urges young people to say no to drugs and yes to education. Ama Owners, referring to the public transport drivers involved in violent rumbles, asks the nation's drivers to relax because we need them for our safe arrival. Penny's success as a Xitsonga artist should not be under-estimated in the context of popular music at the time in South Africa. "When I started with my own style and image, first time in Shangaan we had artist like me," Penny explains. "Our music was traditional before. But I brought a mix of rock and disco and it became the bomb. Every star won't be popular without your own style." It took them eight days to finish album, writing the songs in the studio. Penny says, "The songs just happened. Joe is very good at listening and producing, he has lots of patience. When he played the keyboard I would sing, standing behind him once he finished the rhythm, I would sing it all in one take, non-stop. We were not using computers to record, we were singing live. And we pressed the music on cassette and vinyl - not CD - back then." Fast-forward to 2020, Penny Penny is deep in the political game and appears on television 6 times a week as the star of his own reality TV show, "Papa Penny Ahee!". He is setting up an avocado farm and provides fifty families in his region with food every month via his charitable foundation. Penny still plays huge shows around South Africa and will appear at some Europe's biggest festivals in 2021.

First time on vinyl -Key producer of early South African house music and kwaito Professor Rhythm is the production moniker of South African music man Thami Mdluli. Throughout the 1980's, Mdluli was member of chart-topping groups Taboo and CJB, playing bubblegum pop to stadiums. Mdluli became an in-demand producer for influential artists (like Sox and Sensations, among many others) and in-house producer for important record companies like Eric Frisch and Tusk. During the early '80s, Mdluli projects usually featured an instrumental dance track. These hot instrumentals became rather popular. Fans demanded to hear more of these backing tracks without vocals, he says, so Mdluli began to make solo instrumental albums in 1985 as Professor Rhythm. He got the name before the recordings began, from fans, and positive momentum from audiences and other musicians drove him to invest himself in a full-on solo project. It was the era just before the end of apartheid and house music hadn't taken over yet. There wasn't instrumental electronic music yet in South Afric a. As the '80s came to a close, that was about to change. Professor Rhythm productions mirror the evolution of dance music in South Africa. They grew out of the bubblegum mold - which itself stems from band's channeling influences like Kool & the Gang and the Commodores - into something based on music for the club. His early instrumental recordings First Time Around and Professor 3 mostly distilled R&B, mbaqanga and bubblegum grooves into vocal-less pieces for the dance floor. Musically, these were a success and commercially the albums all went gold. There were countless bubblegum albums flooding the marketplace, with nearly disposable vocalists backed by mostly similar-sounding rhythm tracks. Most of the lyrical content was light and apolitical. But the keyboards used formed the musical basis for what would come next. By the time Professor 4 and this recording Bafana Bafana - the name references South Africa's national soccer team - were released in the mid-1990s, k waito had fully emerged. Access to instruments and freedom of expression helped its rise in influence among youth. According to Mdluli, "Once Mandela was released from prison and people felt more free to express themselves and move around town, kwaito was becoming the thing." Lyrically, kwaito championed the local township lingo while adapting "international music," house music, into the local context. "International Music," as house music and early kwaito were interchangeably known, in many ways reflects the sounds coming from America. But South Africans made it their own. Today, the largest part of the music industry is occupied by house music and its relatives. Record Label: Awesome Tapes From Africa Style: World Music

Artist: Aby Ngana Diop Label: Awesome Tapes from