Thakzin Shapes His Vision of the Rising South African Electronic Genre, 3-Step

Thakzin kneels, lighting the impepho, a type of wild sage used for spiritual and medicinal purposes, gathered in a bowl before him. He leans in, gently blowing at its base until white smoke curls upward. It’s a ritual of cleansing, a call for positive energies to settle into the auditorium at Kwa Mai Mai — a space that itself stands as a living monument in inner-city Johannesburg, dense with memory and heritage. The impepho forms part of an altar-like installation, a quiet invocation to the ancestors. Even before the first note sounds, the message is clear: we are in the presence of something larger, something that envelops the music and charts its path. 

Guests listen via headphones to the sonic brew Thakzin’s been fermenting and refining since 2022. Titled God’s Window, Pt. 1, it’s an 18-track incursion into the elements that shape South African electronic music – from percussive inductions driven by solid bass kicks, to the sly mutations of the log drum, to the layered echoes of polyphonic vocal traditions. Thakzin threads these textures into a continuum that expands the possibilities of how sound can be designed.

Though the DJ and producer, born Thabang Mathebula in Ivory Park on the North-East of Gauteng province, has in recent years been hailed as a pioneering force in 3-Step music — a South African hybrid of Afro-house, Afro-tech, and amapiano elements — it’d be reductive to view this collection purely through that lens. Here, experimentation is not a catchphrase but a natural state. He composes sonic beds for the dispossessed, remedies for the weary, anthems for celebration, sound capsules for memory, and calm passages to quiet restless minds.

“I’ve just been shaping the sound, taking my time with it, making sure we put out something worthy of a classic. Sometimes the music needs to mature — some songs make it, some don’t. It took three years; my team had to kick me off my computer,” Thakzin says the following day, his voice still groggy from talking and socializing. Still, he is affable and animated, pausing mid-conversation to show off some of the gear he uses to make his beats.

Experimentation fuels his practice; it’s what he eats, breathes, and leans on to feed his soul. “You listen to different things and stumble upon new ideas. I’ve also been learning from a lot of people. The music on the album is me stepping into different people’s spaces — like Sun-El Musician, who’s on ‘Love and Pride.’ He is very chilled, makes me think, ‘my music needs to be very chilled, very melodic.’ I learn a lot from people like that; it shapes my sound,” he continues. “There’s always a moment where I search online, stumble across something, and go, ‘Eureka! Where have you been all my life?’ I have a lot of those moments.”

Another sparring partner is Mörda, formerly one half of Black Motion, whose solo career has flourished and whose imprint on global electronic sound deserves applause. Their history together includes “Burning Bush,” “Vault,” and “Diamond Tears.” On the new album, Mörda appears on three songs: the Xelimpilo-featuring “Utlwa,” the Fela Kuti-inspired “Water,” and the uhadi-sampling elegance of “Galela.”

“How [Mörda] moves on stage is how he makes music in the studio – with the dancing, the moving around. It can turn into a party now. I always liked it because it’s real moments, you see when someone is excited by a song. The way he’s gonna hype you up does something to your spirit. You’ll wanna finish the song. He’s a really dope collaborator, he has that ear,” Thakzin says.

In a Spotify-produced promo video released the day of the listening session, Thakzin recalls how he stumbled upon the 3-Step sound now sweeping across the continent – and increasingly, the world. He was online, browsing clips, when he came across someone playing drums. His idea was to carve out space in the percussion. “I just removed one kick, and I was like, oh, okay, there’s a lot of space,” he says in the video.

It’s a label that works for marketing but also risks boxing an artist in. “I remember when people started catching onto 3-Step. I was stressed, for real! I had a conversation with my manager, like, ‘bro, please tell me if I start to sound monotonous.’ I’ve always said in interviews, I was doing things before this sound. I want people to know that. I survive in spaces that aren’t 3-Step,” he says.

Thakzin’s love for music was planted by his father, a musician who encouraged creativity in daily life. “We wouldn’t survive without music. He has a lot of CDs and instruments, he never throws things away. The bug caught me early. Even when I was playing soccer, I always knew there was this thing in me from a very young age,” Thakzin mentions.

He’s called 3-Step a state of mind, and expands on that during our conversation. “It’s being in a space of fusion, surviving in the middle of the noise, and still staying grounded, staying true to what culture means to you. It didn’t just appear; it’s adapted from the genesis of other sounds. We bring all these worlds together and pay attention to the rhythm,” Thakzin says. “There’s only so much I can explain. I still feel there’s no single description of 3-Step, because we’re still going through it.”

Collaboration sits at the core of God’s Window Pt. 1. For Thakzin, it’s about stepping aside when a great idea takes shape. “It’s about censoring yourself. The point is not to dominate. There’s a certain space I get into where I feel, okay, this is not normal. I can’t explain it, but you know when you feel music so deeply it hurts before you even record it? You’re hearing a sound and can’t imagine it any other way. If you don’t capture it like that, it’s lost. In those moments, I feel centered – that’s where the message comes across. Whenever I do something expected, it’s gone. When there are many people, it can be harder to get there, unless everyone is on the same frequency. It rarely happens, but when it does, everyone feels it. That excitement, it’s not man-made.”