Amapiano is not dead, slow down.
Who benefits from declaring African genres dead? Tracing Amapiano’s evolution through industry panic, shifts in DJ culture, extractive systems & survival economics. Genre's don't die, they transform.
Let’s slow down, we’ve been here before. Recent history. They once said Gqom was dead. They also said Afrohouse was dead. Now, they are saying Amapiano is dead.
They who speak in the language of dead genres, are in the business of extracting from culture; pulling roots and never planting seeds. They speak of barren land as if they are not the ones depleting it of its nutrients. The same thing Physics tells about energy, applies to genre; it never dies, it only transforms. As the dearly departed South African cultural icon Riky Rick put it, “we never die, we multiply.”
How the music transforms and multiplies, is (in part) down to the choices that we make and the systems that we continue to participate in. The latest in the grapevine of music industry chatter is that Amapiano is dead, and Afrohouse is the next big thing. As if Afrohouse doesn’t already have it’s own longstanding history. The irony is that the same parasites that have exploited Amapiano, have already started to feed on this current era of Afrohouse. To claim a genre is dying, is to misunderstand that music, like nature, operates in cycles of life. The face of popular music is continuously evolving, no genre remains the hottest forever.
I recently had a disagreement with a music exec who said it was time for those in Amapiano to “move on, if they want to continue to have success”. My first question was, success by whose definition? In certain sectors of the House world, there has been a cult of disdain towards Amapiano since it’s inception, premature whispers of how the music would never last. Amapiano has consistently beaten all odds and silenced naysayers.
The rejection of Amapiano in the industry’s quote-unquote definitive, electronic dance music spaces, is largely to do with rejection of inclusivity in spaces that pride themselves on being elite and exclusive. Spaces that claim to be progressive, but only in increments that keep their hierarchies in tact.
This exclusivity goes against Amapiano’s open arms policy; a policy that says if you have something good to contribute bring it. If you have an idea, we’ll figure it out together. It says, from producer to vocalist, we will all be credited. We will make this music together and then we’ll take it to the world together. This collective spirit, is what led to Amapiano’s phenomenal role in breaking new ground for a diverse landscape of African electronic music genres.
From this exec’s point of view, which was mostly directed at the failings of the genre, what I pulled out (and have been seeing), is that artists have been misguided by people who don’t make art. What I have seen and directly experienced is:
The chase for viral hit songs is shifting the way artists make music.
Developing taste is being replaced with developing strategy.
The need to survive is forcing artists to take less risks and avoid the friction that is necessary to create groundbreaking art.
Cultural innovators assimilate in order to climb industry ranks.
Hyper-consumption resulting in mass release strategies.
Monopolies thwarting grassroots culture and destabilising the market.
Internationally, a failure to programme Amapiano in more of the spaces it belongs.
DJs fast-track careers as producers by claiming the work of young kids in South Africa as their own, in exchange for “exposure.”
There is a downside to DJs being catapulted to stages they weren’t ready for.
Ego and lifestyle gets in the way of the music.
Social media plays a part in putting aesthetics over the music, prioritising digital reactions over the real life experience.
A lack of education and infrastructure as obstacles.
Mediocrity is championed because it’s replicable and easier to sell.
The most exciting and forward thinking artists losing heart and burning out.
In 2024, I had a conversation with Shiba Melissa Mazaza for a brilliantly researched and necessary three-part series about 3-Step as a cultural movement. The piece was recently published, and I think this the perfect place to elaborate on some of the points I made:
“Amapiano has become so saturated now, that a few brands or artists have a monopoly on the entire scene, and everything happens so quickly, with a stifling ‘cash cow’ energy. Even in the Afrotech space, it’s consistent, yes, but very puristic over there – and it’s a very hard space to enter. So looking at the new generation saying ‘ok, we respect the history of house music and where it’s taken us, but we also love Amapiano and how it’s changing lives. Let’s bring these things together and meet in the middle.’ From the moment you decide that’s where you want to create from, automatically there’s a sense of freedom.” - Charisse C
None of issues raised are a fault with the music itself, so let’s get to the root causes. It is expected that an emerging genre will experience growing pains; especially one that catapulted into popular culture, as quickly as Amapiano did, in what has been such a transitional time for dance-floors worldwide. There are political layers to this too, relating to South Africa’s history and how the western world has historically extorted Black/African music.
Still, make no mistake, Amapiano is a phenomenon. The conditions of the genre’s rapid growth were unique and unprecedented. An African genre that unapologetically broke market records. Consistently reinventing itself with the genius of chameleon’s skin, not that it ever tried to camouflage; more so skilled at evolving and taking on new shapes. A genre that transcended geographic boundaries; opening the floodgates for new generations of Black people all over the world to (re)discover their connection to House music. A winning recipe of right place, right time, fresh ingredients and unparalleled work ethic.
When the world slowed down in 2020, Amapiano producers and artists painted the emptiness with remarkable colour. What critics condemn as juvenile music that’s just about dances, is people having actual fun. Knowing the foundations of House music as being about resistance and liberation, is understanding that liberated bodies dance. These sanitised spaces the industry creates as meccas of House music are blasphemous. The moment the collective experience of moving our bodies becomes frowned upon, replaced by pretentiously staring at the DJ with one phone in the air, or posing for a paparazzi moment in the DJ booth, then we’ve absolutely lost the plot.
So fast-forward to today, Amapiano continues to take strides despite the pressure. In 2025, Scorpion Kings put on a lifetime show in the Loftus Versfeld Stadium’s 51,000 capacity, and DBN Gogo opened ADE with the Netherland’s Metropole Orchestra. Meanwhile, new territories continue to discover the music and form their own connections with it, like the Chinese fans fusing it with their own ethnic sounds. K3, one of the UK’s next generation of Amapiano DJs, is currently on part 110 of a TikTok series called, “they say Amapiano is dying and then you hear this.”
December 2025’s hits saw Tobetsa come back with a third version, Sam Deep, Boohle and Nia Pearl unite on an anthem about courting, whilst Zep and Mabalabala became the footwork of the summer. Sgidongo is one of the latest sub-genres moving the streets, whilst producers like Thuto The Human, King P, Mdu aka TRP, Shakes & Les, Bandros, Sfarzo Rtee and Stixx, continue to creatively hold onto the integrity of Amapiano’s roots in House music. Extended arrangements, long build ups, percussive breaks and enthralling climaxes, rhythmic basslines and soulful innovation.
There’s often an argument that substance is what is missing from Amapiano, which is far from the truth. You can’t go to McDonald’s and then complain about a lack of whole foods. There is a place for fast food and a place for nourishment. If you want nourishment, you may have to make an effort to find it. Ultimately, you go where your desire is served, and you invest your time and attention there if you want to see it grow.
Question… when you saw it was dying, what did you do to resuscitate it?
It’s telling. Have you ever known someone to watch something they love drown, turn their backs and flippantly pick up something else? Yet brands, businesses and fandoms are built around a “love for the music,” right? If the music you love is struggling, surely you want to be a part of sustaining it? Instead, in a state of panic and/or chasing of trends, we are seeing an exodus of (mostly) DJs, leaving Amapiano and rebranding as Afrohouse DJs. Management, agents and labels are quickly restrategising their artist’s sonic direction to move with the money.
As Afrohouse has entered the microwave of popular culture, we are witnessing the rising production of diluted, churnable and formulaic chord music being improperly attributed to Afrohouse. It lacks soul, it lacks rhythm and it lacks cultural context, but it persists because it sells. People can evolve, explore and find passion in new things. However, when a DJ is thrust into a sound they have no prior context for, it shows. No amount of branding can disguise a DJ that has forgotten or misunderstood their role as a custodian of the music.
This now expands beyond just Amapiano and into DJ culture, the music industry and creator economy as a whole. I will come back to the point about Amapiano, just walk with me for a moment.
New York based DJ, Zee Muffin recently made a post titled “DJ Culture is in desparate need of an ego death” and I couldn’t agree more. DJs are vessels for the music, but have now become “a product and the music is commodified, optimised for virality and metrics. This shift isn’t solely the DJ’s fault; it’s a survival tactic developed in response to the current landscape we’re operating in,” she continues.
The point I’m making here isn’t just about ulterior motives or an epidemic loss of creative integrity. It’s about our creative processes being contaminated by survival tactics, disguised as “playing the game". Which goes back to my point about the development of taste being replaced by the development of strategy. It’s less about what you’re devoted to and more about what will sell. The arduous (but necessary) work of discovering and devoting yourself to a sound or a perspective that’s truly yours, is cut out when you’re convinced you’ve got only 21 seconds to get to the bag.
The music business aims to simplify and streamline things for the purpose of making money, and ticking off made up accolades. Music execs craft images, to convince other music execs that their product (the artist) is worth buying into. It doesn’t have to be real, it just has to sell. The process of making music is gamified by those with no personal exposure, who will pivot when it’s no longer lucrative. This system that only works for a select few, leaves those with real stakes in the culture and livelihoods at risk, to deal with the aftermath.
When I bring up these issues, people will say “the game is the game,” as if it’s all just a matter of playing your cards right. I reject that because there are gamemasters, and the rules of engagement are by design, not by accident. When we say the game is the game, we accept that there are those who actively control and curate the narrative, and the reactive players who are stuck in a loop of survival. May the best player win, right? Economic commentator, Kyla Scanlon wrote a brilliant essay, that links this loop to the friction economy, “a system that everyone knows is inefficient and unsustainable, but persists because the friction of changing it despite many, many people trying - the actual work of building consensus and implementing new structures seems insurmountable.”
What happens then, is that we accept that it’s bigger than us. I’m not saying there are straightforward solutions, but I am saying that it can’t be bigger than us, when it relies on us. So, it gives me hope when more of us are at least vocal about the fact that playing this game is making us sick.
From British DJ and Broadcaster Tiffany Calver’s recent Substack:
“Institutions, even the best ones, require you to become a version of yourself that can be explained efficiently. That’s not a criticism. That’s just business. I’ve now reached a point in my life where I’m more interested in what resists efficiency. I’m now in the business of being myself”
Zee Muffin aka Zainab Hasnain elaborates on ego death and friction in DJ Culture:
“When I think about friction in the context of DJing, nightlife, and music, I can’t think of a better phrase to encapsulate what we’ve lost.”
This point about friction is important. For example, this landscape we’re in has made it a norm for people who don’t produce music, to call themselves producers to accelerate their careers (this is a lengthy subject that I will write about separately). Again, the arduous process of actually studying and practicing music production is cut out to fast-track careers. AI is an additional factor to consider. Rea Gopane’s ‘Suka’, released in December 2025, has been dubbed the first “AI-powered amapiano hit”.
Kyla Scanlon writes, “AI is the newest terrain in a decades-long race to eliminate all forms of cognitive resistance - to build the most complete, most seamless, most profitable mind-melder that follows you across platforms, logs your preferences, and gently nudges you toward products, perspectives, or more recently, policies.”
It is no coincidence that we have this rise in critical listening spaces, HiFi bars, book clubs, talking head videos about special interests and hobbying etc. A deep seated desire for purpose-driven connection, in real life. A general sense of people needing to touch grass. Not to quote Frank Ocean, but I do believe in hu[man]ity. I believe that we feel the void and that we desire to experience art that feeds us, that makes us feel connected, that challenges us, that requires friction.
So what does this mean for us, the devoted lovers of the music and the craft? As a starting point, I love the phrase “people vote with their feet,” because it tells us that we create value by showing up for what we believe is important, and shouting about it. Not proclaiming that it is dead or underrated. It also means that we disengage from what doesn’t align with our values, and we challenge it when it doesn’t make sense.
Back to Amapiano…
As a DJ, I’ve been questioned about this exodus from Amapiano, and I’m sure me writing this piece will bring up similar questions again, so I have to quickly make my position clear for those that are new here. I’ve been DJing for nine years, and I have always DJed at the intersection of multiple South African genres, connecting the dots with my upbringing in the UK. I started out playing 6-hour-sets in 2017; my signature style became to build from Amapiano, to House, to Gqom in one set. Overtime, I began to condense this journey into the industry standard of hour-long sets; before it was cool and when people looked at me like I was confused.
DJ Maphorisa recently posted a snippet of a new Afrohouse song, with the caption “Amapiano is in good hands. I’m going back to my roots, where it all started, AFRO!!!!!!” Whilst many will have been introduced to Maphorisa as one half of the Scorpion Kings (and Madumane), his presence in South African music predates Amapiano. Spanning across House, Gqom and Afropop; from being signed to Kalawa Jazmee Records, to founding his own label BlaqBoy Music.
I have always advocated for South African genres to be able to co-exist. Not to be homogenised, for their distinctions to be ignored, or for genre-specific spaces to be erased, but for us to be able to cross-collaborate as people with shared foundations. Claims of dead genres affect Black music especially, because in a world of neocolonial systems, where we already lack ownership over our groundbreaking innovations, it doesn’t serve us to segregate ourselves even further, by allowing only one genre to thrive at a time. We are stronger in solidarity, than we are in competition. The sooner we rid ourselves of the idea that there can only be one, the better.
Beyond that, the music itself is interconnected and has been characterised by fusions and hybrids throughout history. At ADE last year, I stood in the booth at the Descendants Parallel show before my set, and again at Tribes in Paradiso. I took stock of what it meant to have Atmos Blaq, Mpho.Wav, DJ Lag, Vigro Deep, Que DJ, Thakzin, DBN Gogo, King Bhutie, Boddhi Satva, Desiree and so many more, all together in Amsterdam for different shows in the same week.
Dead? Impossible. I think now that the novelty has worn off and tastes have refined, things are about to get even more interesting. I have always curated my Abantu party with this connectivity in mind. Hence booking Dlala Thukzin and DJ LeSoul for their European debuts at Village Underground, at a time where I was strongly advised to focus on booking Amapiano acts, because they would be the only ones to sell hard tickets. I proved that rhetoric wrong. Nights like Tribes and Ziongate, have long held down this fort in Amsterdam also.
What’s happening in popular culture often doesn’t reflect what’s happening where culture is birthed; the underground. In the roll out for his poignant debut album ‘Hard Currency’, Gqom DJ and Producer State OFFF wrote, “the underground has always had it’s own currency,” and “the only proof is the sound that survives.” With collaborators from spanning from Amapiano to Baile Funk, the message of Hard Currency is that the value of true artistry and integrity will always prevail.
This rhetoric of dead genres is what led Shimza to launch Kunye (meaning together) in 2020, 6 years later it is a thriving brand. Gqom pioneer, DJ Lag speaks about his experience in our #AbantuMeansPeople podcast conversation. “Amapiano killed us!” he jokes, before speaking about how he embraced the shift by producing Hade Boss, which then become an unexpected hit. He concludes is point by saying that we’ve now reached a point where “everything is open.”
Everything is open. A shift is happening right now. Gqom is back in a big way, and is playing alongside Amapiano, 3-Step and Afrohouse, all on the same line up. Parties titled ‘Best of Both Worlds’ are launching, Amapiano Godmother, DBN Gogo debuted at U’R a predominantly house event, Scorpion King Kabza De Small played a masterclass set at Kunye, RedBull’s B2B series in South Africa had KMAT playing B2B with Dlala Thukzin.
The artists are collaborating across genres, whether it’s Dlala Thukzin’s remix of Kelvin Momo’s ‘Bo Gogo’, ‘Rekere Tech Step’ by Soultronixx, Sponge 101, Sfarzo Rtee and StankyDj, or Deep House producer SGVO’s ‘Lawuleka’ collaboration with Kabza De Small and Mdu aka TRP.
Zee Nxumalo was the most streamed female artist in South Africa in 2025, with a catalogue effortlessly weaving between Amapiano, Gqom, Lekompo, 3-Step, Maskandi and Afrohouse. Music execs often tell us artists to stick to one genre, or else we’ll confuse our fanbases. Zee Nxumalo defies that logic.
In 2022, I was on tour in South Africa. I played a NYE set at Rands that I will never forget, started with Amapiano and closed it with Gqom, it was incredible. I was advised by a music exec I was working with (at the time), to “forget about this Gqom thing, and just focus on Amapiano if you want to make it.” I ignored his advice. Ironically, 4 years later, a different exec is now condemning Amapiano.
It’s not the fans that are fickle, it’s the business. So I say to fellow DJs and artists, if you let the direction of your taste be dictated by trends, you’ll spend forever chasing your own tail. Brands like Piano People that originally only catered to Amapiano all-night-long, have adapted to booking other genres, and now launching a sister event called Afrotronic which had it’s debut last year.
What do you truly believe in? It’s difficult to stay the course, to hold onto integrity. If you take only one thing from this, let it be to slow down and pay attention. Ask questions. Try to find your own voice in the midst of the noise. I sat down with Jazzworx and Thukuthela who put it simply, “good music is good music.”
Amapiano is not dying, it’s evolving.
References and related reading:
Ego, Friction, and Devotion: A Reflection on DJ Culture in 2026 - Zainab Hasnain
I quit my dream job - Tiffany Calver
The Most Valuable Commodity in the World is Friction - Kyla Scanlon
Assembling a Black Counter Culture - DeForrest Brown, Jr.
Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder - Nassim Nicholas Talib
Boddhi Satva on Afrohouse misinformation
I really enjoyed this article! It’s funny to hear the talk of Amapiano dying from people who never actually lived the genre in the first place. Ultimately, like wider society, the sound shifts and evolves as time moves on 🤝🏾
👏🏾👏🏾 take a bow.