005! Music Digest: Chinese Amapiano, Palestinian Drill & Björk Does Dancehall
Some of the latest "glocalised" music trends from around the world.
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This week I was drawn in by a Guardian article about “the secretive world of crisp flavours”, which is an interesting dive into how and why different crisp flavours are developed across the world, and how they’re made with the very specific tastes of different nations in mind. Who knew Italians don’t like Salt & Vinegar (crazy) or that Germans are obsessed with Paprika?
It’s a pretty clean explanation of the concept of “glocalisation” - a business buzzword that describes adapting global products for local audiences. Lately I heard British economist, author and former Spotify exec Will Page talking about “glocalisation” in music: particularly the fact that in recent years local charts have been leaning further towards local music. In 2022, British artists accounted for all of the Top Ten of the end-of-year singles charts for the first time since the charts began, in 1952. It certainly wasn’t pointing to the idea that British artists were crushing (they’re not, internationally), but more that many countries’ charts are now leaning very local and inward-looking.
Perhaps nowhere can you feel this more than in South Africa. A cursory glance at their charts shows almost exclusively South African music in the Top 50. And not only that - it’s mostly made up of homegrown dance music, from afrohouse to amapiano to GQOM, and the latest development - 3Step.
Amapiano - a sort of slow successor to Bacardi House that usually sits around 112bpm and puts the log drum in pride of place - has been around and thriving for years within South Africa and the continent too. So much so that Nigerian takes on amapiano have started to become hugely successful - from Davido’s “Unavailable” to Asake & Olamide’s “Amapiano” or Lojay & Sarz’s “Monalisa”, which all got consistent Hot 97 airplay and are probably amapiano’s biggest international exports. But, last week, Tyla became the first South African artist to hit the Billboard Hot 100 since Hugh Masekela over 50 years ago, with “Water”. She’s been around for a few years already - I loved “Getting Late” from 2019, but she’s just now breaking through with this new single. It’s a kind of amapiano-lite meets R&B, a flavour profile that is understandably working perfectly for the international audience. After a viral dance challenge on TikTok, she’s just added Travis Scott to the remix, released a quick round of follow-up singles, and seems set up for big international success. I would expect we’ll be hearing a lot more of Tyla in the coming year(s), but let’s see if we get more log drum on the charts. We’ve also seen Uncle Waffles (possibly the best DJ name for a woman I have ever come across) become the first amapiano DJ to play Coachella earlier this year.
The amapiano-meets-afrobeats combination (aka “afropiano”) has been wildly popular for the last couple of years, bringing a slightly house lean to many places that historically haven’t had the relationship with house music that South Africa has. We’ve had afropiano tracks from almost all of the big names in Nigeria - from Burna Boy to Rema, and amapiano tracks from other African countries like Mozambique and Tanzania.
Here are some of the biggest South African amapiano tracks this year: Tyler ICU & Tumelo.za’s “Mnike”, ShaunMusiQ & Ftears & Xduppy’s “Bhebha”, Kamo Mphela & Khalil Harrison & Tyler ICU’s “Dalie”, and Uncle Waffles’ “Yahyuppiyah”.
And some of the most far-flung exports of amapiano are from Jamaica, Suriname and even this Chinese track sung in Fuzhou dialect:
In the world of cross-cultural collaborations, Björk and Rosalia have come together for a dancehall-inspired song that protests open-pen fish farming and comes complete with a deepfake video. I don’t think you could get much more 2023 than that, unless it was (Sped Up Version). Apparently, Björk wrote the song over 20 years ago, and was inspired by dancehall. She said that dancehall was the “grandmother of reggaeton” - which feels like a bit of a sore point right now, since the entire genre of reggaeton is currently being taken to court by the original dancehall producers of the beat that pretty much makes up the entirety of the genre. It’s certainly an interesting copyright case, and I’ll be interested to see the outcome. I’d also be interested to hear what Björk was listening to around the year 2000 to inspire this beat. I’m here for all of it, from the production to the politics.
Dancehall these days, though, is sounding pretty different to what Björk is cooking up. I’ve been wondering about doing a year-end round-up, and so I’ve been thinking about what’s been making waves this year in Jamaican music. It’s the first year in some time that I can safely say there was a riddim ruling the roost. The riddim release (i.e. releasing numerous tracks with the same instrumental and different vocalists) was the backbone of JA music for so long but it’s fallen away in recent years to make way for straight-up singles and a more splintered producer culture. But this year, the Big Bunx Riddim has reigned, featuring almost all of the island’s biggest new talent: Valiant, Skeng, Najeeri, Kraff. Alongside Teejay’s “Drift”, Malie Donn & Ireland Boss’ “V6”, and Byron Messia’s “Talibans”, these seem to be the year’s heaviest hitters. And in the last couple of weeks of the year, Masicka has also just released a new album.
Another place that has a thriving and insular music culture is Brazil - where tracks can blast through hundreds of millions of streams, but barely touch a speaker outside of the country. I can’t pretend to keep up with Brazilian music - it’s a firehose and I don’t speak Portuguese either - but I love to check out the latest in absolutely bonkers production, and DJing.
I was drawn in by this one that reworks Enya’s “Boadecia” and turns it into an extremely explicit but somehow still quite melancholy track:
One of the truly most “glocalized” genres of music now seems to be drill. No matter the country, someone there is making drill. There’s Irish drill, greek drill, drill dominicano, it’s universal at this point. The latest I’ve seen is this powerful cypher with Palestinian rappers, I think filmed in Cairo. A strong reminder of the power of rap to be a voice for the dispossessed.
And lastly, some random things I’ve been enjoying lately:
NTS currently has three stellar specials on foundational UK Garage & Drum N Bass labels Tom & Jerry, Nice N Ripe, and DEA Project. Inside!
Zadie Smith’s The Fraud.
The TV show A Murder At The End Of The World. Finally a stylish show (partly) about climate change that I can get down with.
This ML Buch album and this Actress album.