Xduppy, South Africa's Rising Star, Thinks Amapiano Can Get Even Bigger

Ngomoya leans into soulful amapiano, weaving themes of spirituality, longing, and love; the Rough Dance delivers pure, unfiltered ‘sghubu’ – that bass-heavy catharsis tailor-made for dancefloor therapy. Both sides complement each other with specially curated features that energize the music, pay homage to the greats, and collectively imagine a future where the genre is non-existent. Blxckie, Mawhoo, Nanette, Daliwonga, Scotts Maphuma, and many others lend their talents to the project.

Xduppy first met DJ Maphorisa following the success of his 2023 hit, “Bhebha,” a sonic departure from the norm that infused ‘quantum sound’ — a reference to the public transport taxis that would be fitted with the most insane sound system for maximum bass impact, popular among high school students — into the amapiano template.

In an interview with OkayAfrica, the producer says that the album came about as a result of countless studio sessions that happened with no immediate goal in mind besides being creative. “We had planned on dropping an EP but realized we’d made more than enough,” Xduppy tells us. “We do studio [work] every week. It becomes hard to know exactly when we started working on the project.”

Xduppy grew up with a father who was a house music head and a mother who was into gospel. He discovered hip-hop independently and was on that track until he switched it up. However, he still has some rap bangers in the vault.

“I started producing in grade 8 or 9. It was a bit hectic because I didn’t have a laptop. I had to move from one place to another, borrow my friend’s laptop, take it back, skip a few months without producing, and return. This was in 2017/18,” he says. The artist and producer used the bursary money given to students through the National Student Financial Aid Scheme program to buy his first laptop. He installed the music software FL Studio and started producing house and hip-hop songs. That was shortly before the 2020 lockdown.

In Jamaican patois, ‘duppy’ can refer to a malevolent spirit. In his case, it comes from the nickname Dub-G (double G), a reference to the first letters of his name, Gomolemo Gumede. It went from that to just Dub and then Duppy, following the release of Drake’s “Duppy Freestyle.”

“I was just working on some music. I originally made [‘Bheba’] at Sleazy’s just by playing around. He heard it and said that it goes crazy. Myztro’s studio was five minutes away from us. They came through, we worked the song, and let it go. It’s funny; people don’t even know that it’s me singing on it,” he says. “I was just trying to create new sounds. People got a hang of the wave and did their own versions of it.”

The Ngomoya and Rough Dance sessions with DJ Maphorisa didn’t have a linear trajectory. Sometimes, an old song would spark an idea for the feel and approach of whatever they’d work on, or they’d take chords, tweak them, and incorporate them into a song. “In the end, something always came out,” he says.

The results are impressive. In two months, the albums have managed to rack up millions of plays across streaming platforms and introduced music lovers to bangers they’ll bump to until the year ends. “Abantwana Bakho,” featuring Young Stunna and Thatohatsi, is blazing dancefloors, with “Sangena,” featuring Scotts Maphuma and TOSS, closely following behind.

“We were having a hard time deciding which songs would be on the album. We tested them out at our gigs and got people’s opinions online,” he says. “I feel amapiano is gonna be bigger than what it is now. It will keep spreading because it’s also moving with the times.”