🎹🎹PİANO! PİANO!🎹🎹 - a song appreciation thread for “eMcimbini” by Kabza De Small & DJ Maphorisa ft. Aymos, Samthing Soweto, Mas Musiq & Myztro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TPab7xaeP0

Let’s not mince words: this song is a miracle, and it has no business being this good. Here’s why:

It rolled off the 24/7 production line of South Africa’s (hell, the world’s) most prolific producer duo* as part of an album, Scorpion Kings Live, (their fourth/fifth* in nine months’ time!), that looks and smells like a cynical cash grab, serving as a crass promotional tool for their upcoming stadium show in Pretoria, the home of the amapiano genre. (this is what the “Live” in the album’s title and all its track titles refers too. it’s a studio album! the only info missing on the artwork is the ticket prices!)

Even the lyrics can be read as a commercial for “the event” - one meaning of “umcimbi”, of which “emcimbini” is the locative case:
“at the event, that’s where you’ll find me”

Like I said, this song has no business being anything special. And anyway, shouldn’t these guys have run out of great songs to make by now? How many “Akulaleki”s (ILM’s #42 track of 2019), “Tender Love”s, “Love You Tonight”s and “Amantombazane”s can one team even make, realistically speaking?

But any such qualms and considerations simply dissolve during that gorgeous long intro, and then Samthing starts to sing and it’s an ode to amapiano, a celebration of its lure and its power:
“piano! piano! we don’t sleep at home because of you”

It truly is a miracle, but such is the magic of pop music, folx!

tl;dr: it’s just amazing to me how these guys collectively keep coming up with new ways of beautiful.

There’s so many things I love about this, I’ll name one: iiii-iiii aaa-aaaa iiii-iiii-iya

But... I’ve done way too much talking already, so now you tell me: what do you like about this song? Let us count the ways!

Piano! Pi-a-no!

yeah this is sweet

good stuff cheers!

Didn’t know all that about the album’s provenance but IMO the whole thing bangs.

Yes, the whole album is fantastic, apologies if that didn’t come across. And just two months after the previous one! It’s mind-blowing - how do you keep that up? Kabza is a special one.

(there’s an instrumental track called “Dizzy Genius” on his solo album, it’s tempting to read something into that)

Phoyisa sounds pretty fierce in the mix.

Very grateful for the translations, breastcrawl! It’s basically the greatest infomercial of all time.

lmao at the Spotify tracklist appending "Live" to every track on the album just to make things more confusing

man, i've loved every dj maphorisa-related song i've heard so far. gonna check out the full live album soon enough.

just from jumping around btwn them the last little while I can't really pick out individual songs on these albums and tbh I kinda prefer not to and to just luxuriate in the wonderful sameness instead

“luxuriate in the wonderful sameness”, I like that phrase! (though I find there is actually plenty of variation, maybe more so on Scorpion Kings Vol. 1)

And thanks, longneck! A little Google Translate + Basic Zulu Online can go a long way. Wouldn’t trust GT to give me more than an indicative translation for more complex phrases (like here in the verses), but the hooks are pretty unambigious, so I felt fine serving them up like this.

Also learned that “ama-“ is a prefix that makes certain classes of nouns (including loanwords) plural. So “amapiano” simply means “pianos”! (or maybe in this case something like “all things piano”?). Hey, so “Amazulu” means “Zulu people” - and “Ama2000” (a song title I’ve come across more than once recently) means “the 2000s” and possibly by extension “the 21st century”.
I sort of want to learn a bit of Zulu now!

my dad had "learn zulu" tapes around the house when i was a kid, so i got "yebo baba, njani" at my fingertips and not much more.

ha, lots of “yebo”s in SA music, never realized before what it actually means. ngiyabonga, forks!

or alternatively, dank je wel!

voodoo chili, allow me to stress once more that this amapiano stuff is Kabza’s thing. He’s one of the originators of this sound. My impression is that Maphorisa acts more like an executive producer. He’s also got a ton of clout and connections in the business, and who knows who came up with the crucial idea to have “real” singers like Samthing and Sha Sha sing over these amapiano beats. But as for the sound and the beats I’m pretty sure most of it is Kabza.

It only dawned on me recently (call me naive) that the reason those big name SA producers (the grootmans, big shots, or, learn Zulu with me, amagrootma(a)n) always seemed to effortlessly adapt to every new style (I mean, gqom is quite a different beast from either kwaito or amapiano), is, duh, they employ talented up-and-comers and take the credit themselves.

Maphorisa and Kabza are doing this differently. This may or may or not have something to do with the drama that ensued between Prince Kaybee and TNS early last year, when TNS, the young kid who ghost produced Kaybee’s monster hits “Club Controller” and “Banomaya” for him with a unique new sound, demanded full “credit”. This might have been his way to generate publicity and kickstart his solo career, but it brought the wider issue out in the open.

Either way, it’s pretty clear Kabza and Maphorisa made some kind of deal when they partnered up, to their mutual benefit: Maphorisa could surf the crest of the amapiano wave, and Kabza would be able to establish himself swiftly through this shortcut (though I doubt either had any idea of just how phenomenally big their impact would be). It’s not a coincidence that only their first album was credited to “DJ Maphorisa & Kabza De Small” and all three collaborative albums after that to “Kabza De Small & DJ Maphorisa”.

All of this to say: it’s obviously fine to name and credit Maphorisa, the man has gone places and knows a thing or two, but not to the exclusion of Kabza, just because he is the lesser known one.

That makes sense. Thanks.

how do these guys keep doing it.

noted, thanks breastcrawl.

I must say though that a huge part of their appeal is how seamlessly the quite different vocal parts are sewn together. In most other genres (rap), someone lays a verse, good or bad, and the producers do their best to make it fit. But these songs sound absolutely composed and organic, with hook following hook. If that’s Maphorisa, he’s doing a pretty decent job.

This is fun: an open-air DJ set this weekend, with Kabza playing and Maphorisa as hype man. Unfortunately there’s only a snippet of “Emcimbini” at the start:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnuSIfM1SQk

(Whisper it): I've listened to Emcimbini a few times and while it's quite pretty, I'm just not sure what makes it particularly remarkable

i like it, but yeah i'm in similar territory right now

LISTEN MORE DAMMIT

we’ve come too far to give up who we are
so let's raise the bar to Kabz’ and Maph’risa

we’re up all night 'til the sun
we’re up all night to get some
we’re up all night for good fun
we’re up all night to PİANO

In things I realised shockingly late:

a) that beautiful iiii-iiii aaa-aaaa iiii-iiii-iya in the intro is lifted straight from “Thanda Wena Part 2” on Samthing’s album! This may be relevant to what longneck talked about above: Maphorisa knowing (and using) a hook when he hears one? (assuming it was his idea)

b) Sha Sha is Zimbabwean! (she was also already on Maphorisa’s Blaqboy roster - he brought her into amapiano)

c) the first verse isn’t sung by Samthing, but https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9QP55Rv71A">by Aymos!
My original notes were: “Samthi‪ng is using his voice in new and unexpected ways”, but I had no idea, even though it’s right there in the track info: “featuring Aymos, Samthing Soweto, etc...” ‬But their voices are remarkably similar, check “Uvalo” on The Return Of The Scorpion Kings.

Aymos is also on another current hit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxsjyNFu53I
Mas Musiq ft. Aymos, DJ Maphorisa & Kabza De Small • Zaka

Love this live performance of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCy7EIeKZYo
 
His original non-amapiano version from earlier in 2019:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbccWHyuqZY
Aymos • Zaka

(I also posted a brilliant track he’s on on the Sun-El thread over the weekend)

I fucked up the link to Aymos’s own announcement of the imminent release of “Emcimbini”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9QP55Rv71A‬

Yeah I’m thinking the voice blending thing is a feature not a bug, lol. This is what I’m talking about. These guys use voices in remarkably seamless ways.

4’15 = best moment

following my last post, I woke up with this in my head today so it's definitely worming its way in

https://s.s-bol.com/imgbase0/imagebase3/large/FC/5/8/8/0/9200000117330885.jpg

So many best moments

name ‘em!

0:34, 0:51, 1:25, 1:29, 1:59, 2:15, 2:24 etc etc etc

0:34, 0:51, 1:25, 1:29, 1:59, 2:15, 2:24 etc etc etc

we need audio gifs!

I’m not disagreeing

the way he says PI AH NO is cool. as a person who plays the PI AH NO, i certainly appreciate sounding cool.

Thank you so much for this thread. A miracle of a song.

I am a huge fan of the utterly badass 'Lorch' from these guys - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbbfdjk51OE

You’re in luck!
I made a pseudo-pan-African-pop/not-pop playlist for the rolling afro 2020 thread and all Afro-adjacent threads, generously defined. It’s already 105 tracks deep, so enjoy!

(update: now 106, including “Lorch”)

ILM rolling ✳️all-inclusive✳️ afro 2020

Other relevant South African threads:

THE HOUSE OF SUN-EL: Sun-El Musician, Simmy, Mlindo The Vocalist, and other related artists

Thread for the AmaPiano awesomeness that is “Baby Are You Coming?” by Zero12finest feat. ThaMagnificent2

Gqompetition time: two songs, two videos - QDOT vs SHADO M

i love this shit so much!

such an avalanche of great music coming out of SA, feel like I need a ballot poll just to get a grip on the past 18 mos or so

okay yeah this song is great

Piano! Pi-a-no!

― human and working on getting beer (longneck), woensdag 19 februari 2020 1:18 bookmarkflaglink

otfm

Still the undisputed #1 in South Africa.

Parodies are being made: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqfym6iPM88

A car, a drone, dancing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O75ZIfaQ-wU

Same car, same drone, singing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXiTA6-lDmU

Corona cancelled The Event, it seems. On the upside, Maphorisa and Kabza are dropping four new projects:

"1st April 2020 we dropping ‬
‪Scorpion Kings Live 2 Ep‬
‪Daliwonga’s Ep ‬
‪Mes Musiq x Aymos’s Ep‬
‪Mdu Aka Trp x Bongza’s Ep"‬

...followed by Amapiano Burnout: The Movie

Wrong thread, because non-piano, but on the Maphorisa=Lawd Porry=Madumane rap EP (which also features Rich Homie Quan), I like the languorous “Bentley” with Nyovest and Howard.

(listening again to it now: damn, it IS good, and actually very much piano-inspired, so I’m posting it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahx6OPt_vXM)

I played Kabza’s mostly instrumental solo mixtape Pretty Girls Love Amapiano, Vol. 2 m/l as background music. Two tracks stood out for me (but I def need to listen to it more, preferably on headphones): “Dr Peppa” and closing track (yet again!) “Spaceman”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtcp46k-zMg
Kabza De Small • Dr Peppa

Still have to listen to MDU aka TRP x Bongza’s Pull Up Project in full. The few tracks I’ve heard suggest a slightly different take on piano, so it could be interesting.

All in all, this April Lockdown Dump is impressive, not just because of the sheer amount of music, but also because of the great number of highlights.
And to think they’re still sitting on some monster tunes, like the “Broken Souls” track with Sha Sha and “Prrrr” with Kwesta I heard them play in their first Quarantine dj set. Maybe these will be releases for those artists themselves?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIeeaI79ygs
De Mthuda & Njelic - Ebumnandini feat. Mkeyz (Mhawkeyz presumably). Nice follow-up to Shesha.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFp9KDfaWis
Daliwonga - Moya feat. Aymos

Aymos is really the voice to follow. I'd say he's the voice of Amapiano right now.

MKeyz and Mhaw Keys are two different people…

https://twitter.com/mkeyzm

https://twitter.com/mhawkeys

…who both have worked with De Mthuda, confusingly enough.

xp

Juls seems to agree, this is from his new EP Happy Place:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RBzW3qz8wo

Juls ft. Aymos • Tembisa

The title of the track with Kwesta mentioned above turns out to be “Krrrr”, not “Prrr”, and is by Mfr Souls without credited involvement by Kabza & Porry. I posted it on the Amapiano Awesomeness thread.

Meanwhile, no Kabza or Porry here either, but this is Emcimbini-level intoxicating:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAsMeAb5SXE
DJ Nastor ft. Kuhle Excellent, Eli Phaz & Quexdeep • Sofa

New (27-track, 3-hour!) Kabza album out today, I Am The King Of Amapiano: Sweet And Dust, featuring two tracks with Wizkid (!) (Burna is one of those too) and one each with Samthing and Sha Sha. It's on Apple Music but not yet on Spotify.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbYvfuwfqEI
Kabza De Small ft. Wizkid, Burna Boy, Cassper Nyovest & Madumane • Sponono

replacing broken link for Daliwonga ft. Aymos • Moya posted upthread.

And holy wow at this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBtX7kO4b1o
Kabza De Small ft. Wizkid • Need You Tonight

those are both pretty nice (or at least with Sponono it's super fun to hear those voices together), though I'm reminded of longneck's tip about letting Spotify mix out the intros and outros. Some enterprising person should put out a pop mix of Kabza's stuff: everything edited down to 3:45

This new Kabza is excellent. Hearing Burna's voice on Sponono seriously gave me the chills.

Best track on that Kabza album. I love this so much, total vibe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9YpWwQ-qPE
Kabza De Small ft. Daliwonga • Ilog Drum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLiYx6LfuXg
Moonchild Sanelly, Aymos & Theology HD - Isegazini

This is a killer

LiveAm(a)p(iano) magic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWeVc0yNGac

latest (largely) Kabza & Maphorisa project is the Money Heist album by Tyler ICU & Nicole Elocin. based on only one listen, it mostly sticks to formula, with no exciting new directions like the Daliwonga tracks on Kabza’s King Of Amapiano. the hit off this is a cover of (and I kid you not) that old chestnut “Bella Ciao”.

not posting anything yet until I found a favourite - instead here’s a lovely non-Kabza track that’s very popular right now:

Soa Mattrix x SoulfulG x Shaun101 • Uthando (full version)

Do check out this fun live performance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju0HNQKgbZk

antifa amapiano....I like it

okay, the people have spoken, so here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMh8ukme6YQ
Nicole Elocin & Tyler ICU ft. Kabza De Small & DJ Maphorisa • Bella Ciao

...I really don’t think “Bella Ciao” belongs on the same thread as “Emcimbini”...

people might actually start thinking
I’m posting third-rate gqom or amapiano tracks simply because they’re briefly popular in their respective country

Didn't know this about the title of the current Kabza album:

“The purpose of the ‘Sweet and Dust’ title was us trying to separate the types of Amapiano sounds: “dust” is mainly the hardcore drum pattern; the Kwaito influenced sound, and “sweet” is the more soulful and jazzy Amapiano. All in all, this album shows the world that Amapiano is a genre that caters to everyone.”

(from this article posted by Nabozo on the AmaPiano awesomeness thread:
https://mixmag.net/feature/amapiano-south-africa-house-music-movement-gauteng)

Also an affectionate chuckle at this:

“This is my first album,” says Kabza.

(also was blissfully unaware that "Bella Ciao" is riding a new wave of popularity because of the La casa de papel/Money Heist series. I don't netflix)

Mambisa II, the new Mas Musiq album, is fantastic, as good as any of the Kabza x Maphorisa albums, if not better – for one, it has lots of post-“Emcimbini” tracks with beautiful vocals (Aymos, Daliwonga, and Mlindo all show up, Sha Sha doesn’t, but Nia Pearl and Nicole Elocin do instead), feel free to take your pick and post some...

...but I’ve been looking for this Joni ever since I saw and heard the crew working on it live and direct on Madumane=Maphorisa’s Instagram live stream in early August:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84VuZC2pfLc
Mas Musiq ft. Madumane, Daliwonga, Vyno Miller, Kabza De Small & Myztro • Joni

It was all of the above (minus Kabza, so the groundwork had already been laid) together in a small studio (no facemasks, shared vaping, aargh), adding verses and ad-libs on the spot. Thought for sure they were going to drop this monster the very next day, but no. Kept checking YouTube to see if someone had posted that session, again no. Guess they were waiting for the “December” season...

okay, I'll go ahead and post this absolute stunner as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w3nFHv00ZM
Mas Musiq ft. Daliwonga • Watermelon

In love with Streeeeet Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight-ah! atm

Aymos finally releases two tracks of his own, and one is with Kabza:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IezhJlGIL0
Aymos ft. Kabza de Small • Iparty Yam

The Daliwonga album is out. Did anyone listen yet?

oh wow, I didn’t know! he’s great on everything I’ve heard him on this year, so colour me stoked.

listened to it this morning. very good album (another one!), although song-wise I don’t think it’s on the level of the Mas Musiq one. really like the rich percussion on these tracks.

It's more of a vibe, but it sounds like something that might grow on me if I let it. Daliwonga's voice is pure bliss.

mas musiq album is very nice but also sooo long

New Sha Sha, produced by Kabza & Maphorisa:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-khYk8xMNE
Sha Sha • Woza

It's December alright:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qPiqniM9kM
Kabza De Small & DJ Maphorisa ft. Tresor • Funu

goddamn, Tresor, sheeesh

so according to iTunes, ^this is from a 14-track album from these three due in February O_O

good lord, he also has a solo album coming out in January called Motion

I'm catching up on /revisiting this year's singles and he should really be a big ILM obsession, looking forward to starting a dedicated thread in 2021

keep it coming, Kabz!

Kabza (and to a much lesser extent Maphorisa) is all over the new DJ Stokie album as well, which I have yet to listen to. Lots of Daliwonga on there too.

As for Tresor, he dropped several pre-album songs in the past few months - I posted “Zwakala” on the Sun-El thread, but since then we’ve had “Dancing With The Moon” and “Walk Thru Fire”.

Meanwhile, there’s a superb new Samthing Soweto EP to enjoy, with De Mthuda producing instead of K&M. Check the Sun-El thread for more!

yeah those three tracks are the "this year's singles" I was alluding to -- excellent stuff. There's also "Thrill," which is maybe a little less exciting.

And don't worry, I have the Sun-El thread bookmarked. I just can't post anything as I've only managed to listen to maybe half a dozen tracks combined from the new Sun-El and Samthing projects :/

a little bit of context:
https://www.musicinafrica.net/magazine/sa-scorpion-kings-makers-and-tresor-announce-new-album-release-funu

I made a Spotify playlist with (almost) everything posted in the MZANSI MUZIQ 2021 🇿🇦 Rolling South African thread as well as South(ern) African tracks posted this year on other threads, like this one:

ILM rolling 🇿🇦 Mzansi MusiQ 2021 🇸🇿 🇳🇦

the Rumble In The Jungle album (Kabza x Maphorisa with Tresor) just dropped

interview with DJ Maphorisa on amapiano:

https://www.okayafrica.com/dj-maphorisa-scorpion-kings-interview/

her doesn't mention his new EP with Tyler ICU (just three tracks, for a change). this is the hit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39xp8P40eyY
DJ Maphorisa & Tyler ICU ft. Sir Trill, Daliwonga & Kabza De Small • Banyana

on collaborating with Kabza:

with amapiano, I didn't want to interfere much by introducing too many new elements. I was already a fan of the sound. Back at the studio with Kabza, I would study him while he did his thing and then step in where I'm mostly good at — songwriting and recording vocals. We had two different chemistries that benefitted from each other. We really vibed in studio, and as a result, composed a lot of music and experimented with new sounds.

on gqom vs amapiano:

I knew that this was a sound that would take South Africa to the world. There's a lot that you can do with amapiano — you can make it soulful, funky, dusty and hard or jazz it up. At some point, I knew that gqom would reach its sell-by date because it was fast-paced and dark. I find that once a genre becomes dark, the songs end up sounding the same. Gqom was dope but I also felt like it was, only, for certain people. However, with amapiano, I realised quite early on that there was a lot that we could do with it.

"Banyana" and it's eh... source material(s) are being discussed in the Rolling Mzansi 2021 thread btw

master at work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FArU_40irVs

Mambisa II, the new Mas Musiq album, is fantastic, as good as any of the Kabza x Maphorisa albums, if not better – for one, it has lots of post-“Emcimbini” tracks with beautiful vocals (Aymos, Daliwonga, and Mlindo all show up, Sha Sha doesn’t, but Nia Pearl and Nicole Elocin do instead), feel free to take your pick and post some...

...but I’ve been looking for this Joni ever since I saw and heard the crew working on it live and direct on Madumane=Maphorisa’s Instagram live stream in early August:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv0AorbSFXQ
Mas Musiq ft. Madumane, Daliwonga, Vyno Miller, Kabza De Small & Myztro • Joni

It was all of the above (minus Kabza, so the groundwork had already been laid) together in a small studio (no facemasks, shared vaping, aargh), adding verses and ad-libs on the spot. Thought for sure they were going to drop this monster the very next day, but no. Kept checking YouTube to see if someone had posted that session, again no. Guess they were waiting for the “December” season...

― kiss some penis reference (breastcrawl), woensdag 11 november 2020 22:36

turns out an excerpt of that session was on YouTube all along, unfortunately most of the recording had been done here already - still, for posterity (and the vapours!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKCzqQ3kwGc

everybody, rock your body
everybody, rock your body right
*Kabza’s back, alright!*

all four tracks on his new Ziwangale EP are great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MplCQIVI68
Kabza De Small ft. DJ Tira, Young Stunna, Dladla Mshunqisi, Felo Le Tee, Beast & Dj Exit_sa • Ziwa Ngale