Amapiano’s Second Wave: Upcoming producers and the risks of exploitation

Amapiano listeners based in the Global North might struggle to comprehend the extent of the inequalities in South African society. Although townships are often invoked in writing about amapiano, the genre is associated with money and glamour, particularly for international audiences. Major League DJz’s prominent “Balcony Mix” series features the two brothers DJing in luxury settings around the world – on hotel rooftops, by huge swimming pools or flashy homes, with DJs and their entourage dripping in designer clothing.³

If amapiano arises from townships, where so many people are struggling financially, why are these images of luxury and economic success so prominent? To begin to answer this, it’s important to understand South Africa’s “Black diamonds”. The phrase “Black diamond” is used to describe wealthy members of the country’s socially and economically mobile Black middle class. In his book Kwaito’s Promise, Gavin Steingo describes how successful musicians in the kwaito era became Black diamonds, relocating from townships to the suburbs, but remaining closely tied to townships through family, ceremonies and casual visits. As Black-run labels got up and running in the post-apartheid years, middle class Black South Africans coordinated the production of music by people in townships.

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In amapiano, established musicians similarly take on an organisational and coordination role with upcoming producers. Some of these musicians may be from a township background themselves, having found success earlier on in amapiano or other genres. Others are already part of South Africa’s middle class through family backgrounds. Many invite younger township artists to produce tracks for them with the intention of presenting them as collaborations or features, something like a mix of ghost-producing and the type of artist curation previously done by label managers. But I was told that in some cases, the already-famous artist doesn’t pay the featured artist/s fairly, or passes the track off as their work, without crediting or properly paying additional producers.

One artist I spoke to (who preferred to stay anonymous) was burned by a very well-known amapiano artist when he didn’t have a contract to say what he’d produced and what percentage he was entitled to. This is a recurring problem. “People promise to put you on, but they don’t want to pay for your beats,” he tells me. “I know a lot of guys with big songs, but they haven’t received any money from them because there’s nothing on paper. You can’t really prove that you were part of this song that has this platinum status.”

Kooldrink tells me that “showboating”, presenting an image of luxury and financial success, is part of the Black diamond lifestyle in South Africa. He accuses certain unscrupulous artists of using this to entice younger, less privileged producers to work with them. “The Black diamond producers have big houses in affluent suburbs like Midrand in Jo’burg. They will go out and find kids, people who are like 17, 18, 19, and they will be like, ‘hey guys, the four of you, I see you guys making music in the township. Come stay with me for a year, come live at my house.’

“These kids are taken out of the township where they’ve never seen the Black diamond life. The artist says, ‘the four of you are going to stay in my mansion, you can have everything you want, people on TikTok will see you rolling around with me and you become the cool guy. And you guys just have to make music.’”