In summary
- To highlight this, the series brings together African music’s cultural leaders and rising stars
- Amapiano, which has roots in the townships of South Africa’s capital, Pretoria, has taken the world by storm.
Spotify has launched Beat School, a new three-part global video series celebrating the unique and diverse sounds of African music.
In recent years, African music has been on the rise as artists from across the continent have broken into mainstream genres with all-star collaborations and genre-bending fusions.
To highlight this, the series brings together African music’s cultural leaders and rising stars to highlight three distinct sub-genres and showcase the full breadth of music coming out of the content including Amapiano.
Pabi, Mellow, Sleazy speak
In the first episode, Amapiano artists Pabi Cooper and Mellow & Sleazy sit down for a discussion on the rise of Amapiano talking through their influences and more on artists to watch out for.
““Amapiano is the leading genre in Africa so I just hoped on Amapiano. We both do Amapioano and Barcadi because we are from Pretoria,” said Pabi Cooper during the interview.
“Amapiano has a lot of subgenres… there’s sgicha, Mozambique whereas diBarcadi is Barcadi, it doesn’t have a subgenre. There’s no soulful Barcadi, Barcadi is Barcadi. Barcadi is very fast, it’s very loud and ratchet,” said Mellow.
Amapiano, which has roots in the townships of South Africa’s capital, Pretoria, has taken the world by storm.
Spotify data shows that 43% of all Amapiano is being listened to outside of South Africa with Pabi Cooper and Mellow and Sleazy with Sub-Saharan African markets like Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, and Ghana all ranking in the genre’s top 20 export markets.
Stay tuned in the coming weeks for more episodes from Beat School that will highlight other sub-genres taking you on a journey through African music and culture with some of the hottest African artists & producers! Please let me know if you have any further questions.
