If Gqom were a big house, there’s one man you’d find at its center: Lwazi Asanda Gwala. Known as DJ Lag, the Durban-born polymath is Gqom royalty, responsible more than anyone for taking its hypnotic sound international. Over the past decade, he’s brought the dark South African electronic genre to prestigious festivals and venues across the world.

After three solo EPs, DJ Lag’s debut album, the anticipated Meeting With The King, is finally out. The fourteen-track project demonstrates Lag’s mastery of Gqom, building immersive experiences from simple, hard-hitting kicks, claps and a 125-127BPM beat. Between collaborating with genre-pushing artists and sampling woozy elements of Amapiano, DJ Lag’s vision is recognizably collaborative.

One evening in late January, the 27-year-old veteran spoke to OkayAfrica from his Durban home, surrounded by instruments. Enjoying some well-earned rest, his smile fills the screen, his taut skin resplendent. Most of his projects, he says, were created on the road: on planes and airports, backstage at concerts, inside cars and rented apartments. Then in early 2020 the pandemic broke out and like many artists, he took the chance to create this album, inspired by the familiar allure of being in South Africa and surrounded by family and friends.