SOUND

Gqom is the most exciting club music to have emerged in recent times, and DJ Lag is its pioneer. Characterised by heavy bass and repetitive rhythms, he brought the raw, minimalist house variant circulating in South African townships to the whole world: an apocalyptic riot music vibrating with the desire for political awakening and social emancipation as well as a soundtrack for excessive parties in which utopia becomes reality, even if but for a moment. On his 2022 debut album Meeting with the King, he opens his sound to softer, more playful types of African house like the recently much celebrated – also in Europe – Amapiano.