Music
KwiishSA Rings the Gong
Amapiano, the electronic music genre borrowing from diBiarcadi and Kwaito is disrupting hierarchies in the South African music industry with its distribution models & promise of relatively quick fame
Isikhathi, which means “time” in isiZulu, only lives up to its popular nickname, Gong Gong, 20 bars in- with a bassline that has rattled mobile phone and car speakers, club and festival sound rigs to within an inch of distortion throughout South Africa since its release in 2017. Similarly, the song’s producer, 21-year-old Kwiish SA, is finding his rhythm as a professional musician in a genre which is shaking up the country’s music industry establishment to its foundations.
“The song pushed itself, nobody promoted it,” says Kwiish about his first major hit in a seven-year career which has had its share of knocks and near misses. Gong Gong first became a local hit in Vosloorus, a township roughly 50 kilometers from Soweto, where Kwiish was raised and still lives. It then found its way out of Vosloorus thanks primarily to the popular messaging application Whatsapp. “When you send music through Whatsapp, there is no stopping it. So the name Kwiish SA was already on kids’ phones and I would hear my music being played in local taxis, not knowing how it got there.” A social media trend followed which saw videos posted that featured the song with people performing dances popularised by the Amapiano genre. Interest from terrestrial radio stations followed and their playlisting of Gong Gong raised Kwiish’s national profile.
Ironically, it was his former-professional-footballer father’s decision to open a chillas (pub) which led to Kwiish abandoning his secondary schooling in grade 10 to pursue music- a decision which naturally raised the father’s ire. The chillas’ shelter was made of poles and thatched roofs which resembled houses used to shelter sangomas, so it was that the place was named Emadumbeni, the Zulu word for these traditional homes. There Kwiish, real name Lehohonolo Marota, worked behind the counter on weekends and watched as DJs played records and crowds frenziedly.
KwiishSA
© Supplied
When the CDJs and other sound equipment were stored at his home after pub nights, Marota would fiddle with them, trying to emulate what he had witnessed Emadumbeni. A local DJ and friend, Soso, tutored him in DJing. And when he was confident enough, Marota entered the fray of local Amapiano DJs vying for a set at any chillas they could get to. It was slim pickings in terms of payment when he and other Amapiano jocks were able to convince resident DJs at spots like Sifateng and White House to grant them a set on the line-up. “We were chasing fame, walking the unsafe streets at night,” he says “but we did it because we loved it. When we played, we would get paid in six-packs (of alcohol).”
Amapiano, an electronic music genre that gets its name from the use of keyboards (or pianos), has had influential and vocal detractors from the onset. Presenter/DJ/Producer at a regional commercial radio station Kutluano Nhlapho, known as Da Kruk, faced heavy criticism and backlash from late 2016 until September 2017 in his attempts to have the music playlisted on his and other shows at the station. He says that it is only recently that the genre has gained the recognition from commercial music establishments, giving Universal Music and Sony Music’s courtship of prominent Amapiano producers as an example.
We were chasing fame, walking the unsafe streets at night but we did it because we loved it. When we played, we would get paid in six-packs
With the fame he had so long coveted brought on by his hit song, Marota would have the air beat from his chest several times by a combination of his own amateurish dealings and those of unscrupulous promoters and record executives. He fell out with his former booking agency when he accepted performance bookings outside of the exclusive contract that he had signed. “When you have management, your gigs decrease because you are more strict with payment. By that time,” he reflects “I noticed that I was earning less; I would go two weeks without a gig so I took bookings myself. Also, “When Gong Gong came out,” he says “there were people who were fighting me, claiming that the song was theirs. There was this one guy who was trying to knock (cheat) me. But that’s all in the past, I don’t want to resuscitate the controversy.”
Now sat in front of his Compaq laptop at the Content Connect Africa (CCA) offices in the leafy Johannesburg suburb of Rosebank, Marota is working on his second EP due for release later this year. He is fresh from his first trip abroad where he played as part of the Canada Music Week’s focus on South Africa in 2019. He seems comfortable, blissfully ignorant of how CCA is gaining returns from the deal he has signed with them.
But for Kwiish SA and other Amapiano producers, the learning curve from hood hitmaker to professional musician is steep and backbreaking. A local music industry buttressed by knowledge, resources, influence and access is a formidable fortress against sustainable careers for them. Vying against one another for the fickle spot at the apex of South African house music does little to better their chances.
