Ten years ago, if you'd asked an electronic music fan where the next wave of innovation in dance music was likely to originate, they might have suggested London, pointing to the myriad variations of future-facing, bass-heavy sounds that emerged from dubstep’s smoky haze in the late ‘00s.
These days, though, you’re far likelier to hear new sounds coming out of the clubs of South Africa than a sweaty basement in Shoreditch. Over the past decade, styles like amapiano, shangaan and afrohouse have spilled out of South Africa’s townships and on to the global stage, as Durban and Cape Town have supplanted London and Berlin as the hotspots for invention and creativity in the electronic music world.
