A few days ago, three young guys were cruising a Toyota Camry, somewhere in southwestern Nigeria, most likely Ibadan, on video.
In the car, all three were signing and attempting to mimic a deep bass rhythmic progression, nodding their heads vigorously and flapping both their arms like the feathers of a bird in flight. The video they recorded had Adekunle Gold’s “High” on before it switched onto Joeboy’s “Alcohol.” So much emphasis was made on Davido’s verse which was accompanied by that sustained nodding of the head and half-shut eyes in appreciation of the song’s aesthetics and musicality.
Nigerian music is undergoing a transformation that is of African origin. It is located in a deep bass beat that is played in a series of successions. Something we have all come to know as amapiano. Luckily, this genre of music that several music producers are infusing in songs like Sarz and Lojay’s “Monalisa” or Falz ‘s “Squander” was a low-tier music production that grew deep in the streets of South Africa.
“Many producers have looked down on the amapiano sound and classified it as low quality,” Mark Khosa, a South African musical producer, admits in a documentary. This downgrade is not uncommon with emerging music, dance, food, and culture trends from the African continent, which are always looked down on as inferior to their European counterparts.
Khosa admits that the amapiano genre can be traced to Kabzy and MFR souls, who combined disc jockey with musical production for as long as he can remember. However, the name came about when deep baselines met with a church keyboard sound to create a variety of rhythms.
“There is this other guy who started this thing. When the DJ was playing music, he took the keyboard as if it was in church and started playing over the music. He played the piano while they recorded in the studio to get that specific genre of music. In my opinion, amapiano consists of baselines and keyboard sounds you would hear on a church keyboard.
“Someone came up with the concept of infusing deep house inside piano so the deep house can push the piano sound. Kabza, a veteran in the industry, tried to play the same music with a different variation called Numba at clubs back in the day.
“Most people knew him as a DJ that plays a deep house sound called Numba till it was called amapiano. They are the ones who started it. MFR souls became the ones popular for this sound.”
The music artist explains that the music consisted of sounds from DJ clock, Bezin Terris, while adding Jazzi disciples, Papers 707, and Thackzin as pioneers of the sound’s growth. Khosa notes that the sound exploded when Papers 707, an entertainer, took it further with a viral dance tagged #DanceLikePapers.
Khosa said the dance started with a cup which was stylishly moved around one’s wrists till it graduated to a bottle in its stead. Papers used a pillow to popularise that move, and the hashtag #DanceLikePapers was birthed. However, the music artist felt they could monetise this trend by adding some vocals to it. So they recorded a song with scanty lyrics which went thus: “Dance like papers if a grown man does not have a beer belly, he is childish.”
This was the rise of a sound licensed to several communities in Pretoria and Johannesburg, not excluding, Alex, Soweto, Tembisa, and East Rand.
In Nigeria and several parts of the world, the fame has multiplied endlessly. At this point, it is almost impossible even to track the first song that experimented with the use of amapiano because there are several songs far and in between that have leveraged different variations of this beat to carve something unique. The list is endless between Joeboy’s “Consent,” to Wurld’s “Mad,” “Woman” by Rema, Zinolessky’s “Kilofeshe,” “Go Low” by L.A.X, Rexxie’s “KPK,” “Look at Me” by Niniola, DJ Kaywise’s “Highway.”
Nigerian Producers who have explored it in the creation of amazing songs
Sarz and Lojay’s collaboration on “Love And Attention” contributed to the rise of the amapiano beat. The legendary music producer credited for contributing to Wizkid’s rise succeeded in creating the biggest pop song of the year in “Monalisa,” the album’s hit single. “Tonongo” is also a major hit on the five-track EP released in June 2021. Monalisa‘s success was heightened by the visuals, which are almost 5 million views after it was released September 15, 2021.
Davido’s collaboration with Focalistic on “Ke Star” is also iconic to the rise of the growing trend in Nigeria. The success of that track is why Davido went on to feature the artiste in a new single titled “Champion sound” released last month.
Then there is Rexxie, the Marlian in-house record producer with his evergreen hit of “Ko Por Ke.” Similarly, Niphkeys has also produced several hits for Zinoleesky and Mohbad; labelmates signed to Naira Marley’s label. Several artistes have also explored this gift, like Rema on his iconic single, “Woman,” Falz on “Squander,” the list is endless. Currently, South Africans have continued to milk this genre as original producers; they have several amapiano mixes on Youtube amounting to millions of streams.
A South African Personality, Da Kruk, spoke of the rise, saying, “Initially amapiano was not well mixed or mastered. They were very terrible, but the baselines and progressive keys were crazy. It is one of the only genres where a guy that is big on YouTube, Whatsapp, and datafile host mixtapes is getting shows and gigs. You don’t see that in hip-hop because there is always a business person determining where the artiste should go and dictating how much money the artistes should be making.”
Tomi, a student of the Lagos State University, believes Adekunle Gold’s “High” is the reason why the popular sound watimagbo is a popular slang.
Kehinde Vincent, one of the brains behind the production of abeg jingle played on the just concluded television reality show; Big Brother Naija Season six, admits the beat has been really helpful and well accepted by a global audience.
“Amapiano has pushed the Nigerian music scene in a way that the music is slow and can be vibed to compared to how pacy it used to be. On the abeg jingle, I decided to combine it to give the jingle some more vibe, and it pretty much worked in the urgent 2k part. It is vital for me because it is what people remember the most. It has also helped producers create more hits; the trend has moved from shaku-shaku to zanku to gbe body and now amapiano. It adds a new vibe to Nigerian music.”
Vincent thinks it has been a tad over-flogged on the Nigerian scene; however, amapiano’s growing influence on music cannot be ignored or dismissed.
With this influence on Nigerian music, it is evident that Nigerian artistry has struck gold in musical contributions.