WORDS Liam Maher

Malamulele in Limpopo, South Africa, is the mecca of what has been termed “shangaan electro” — a type of music characterised by its high BPMs, marimba based beats, and the frenetic dancing that goes along with it. It has moved from Limpopo to Soweto, which is now the shangaan hotbed, and has produced many of the artists which Honest Jons (the main label releasing shangaan) have released. The connection between the London-based label and shangaan came through the work of musicologist Will Glasspiegel, who was studying in South Africa and helped the influential shangaan kingpin, Nozinja, hook up with Damon Albarn’s label.

Traditional shangaan music is a mix of flowing guitar lines on top of live drumming and is best illustrated by artists such as Thomas Chauke and General MD Shirinda, the latter of whom appeared on Paul Simon’s classic album Graceland. From its traditional roots it has moved onto the electronic version that Nozinja has popularised, with some of its tracks hitting a breakneck 180 BPM, although it took quite a few years before his take on the genre was accepted.

Nozinja runs a studio from his Soweto home, where he apparently produces over 50,000 records a year and edits a stream of music videos which are mostly filmed in front of a green screen and interspersed with footage of dancers outside shangaan townships. From its humble roots, shangaan music has been introduced to the world of electronic music via Honest Jons. From here a slew of remixes followed from perennial UK producer Actress, Ricardo Villalobos and Chicago footwork dons Spinn and Rashad.

Like the aforementioned footwork genre, the dances that go along with the music are an essential part of not only shangaan electro as a cultural phenomenon, but also its live component. Fast dance moves are encouraged, but anything too risque or judged to be inappropriate is jettisoned quickly. The focus of the shangaan dance for the female dancers is the waist, from which the dancers’ xibelani skirts (knee-length and covered with beads) accentuate every movement. For the males the focus is mostly on the feet. While the scene has grown exponentially over the past few years, at heart its aesthetic has changed little, and this has to do with Nozinja’s strong control over the music’s dissemination, and his firm conviction that it should stay true to its local roots.