The Best Afro-House Songs Right Now

Afro-tech is one of the spaces where AI-generated music and AI-assisted sounds are prevalent, due to its sheer scale. And while we might miss it in some respects, it's always jarring when it comes from producers we've come to know and trust. There's an inherent betrayal, a level of trust that gets eroded. 

It does go some way when globally renowned and respected platforms like Beatport and Traxsource make their stance known — the former doesn't permit fully AI-generated music in the store, and the latter has recently implemented a system that labels AI-generated music.

This month, we turn our focus to the innovative South African scene, where we find the grunge and grime that animate sound and song, with powerful releases from JNR SA, Nandipha808, Darque, Zakes Bantwini, and more. 

Jnr SA, Oscar Mbo – "Umgido"

What Jnr SA and Oscar Mbo have achieved on "Umgido" is total domination and unending control. They've erected a vertical in Afro-tech, ring-fenced the whole scene with just one song. The gqom influence here is undeniable; it's the signature synths imported wholesale that make this song sing, the templated bass drops that excite parts of the ear hard to access and massage parts of the body hard to categorize. This is movement music, we're-not-going-home music, synthesized in the most forward-thinking corners of the South African dance scene.

Francis Mercier, Maline Aura – "Ngizwile"

The bassline here performs critical functions. It doesn't announce itself so much as creep up, catching you unaware and lifting the vibe to another level. Maline Aura, whose distinctive, near-nasal voice and calming tone are reassuring here, doesn't flood the riddim with many words; "yini le ngaka," she wonders, repeating the phrase as if it were hypnotherapy. Phenomenal doesn't touch the hem of what this song does, so plug and play right away.

Nandipha808 – "I'm Gonna Find My Money"

Nandipha808 is interested in a healthy lifestyle. There's no other reason he'd concoct a compulsory workout and package it in song form. "I'm Gonna Find My Money" is athleticism gone audio; a multi-stage workout plan set to the beat of Afro, with a dancefloor-centric premise that permeates the whole thing. The vocal phrasing of "I'm gonna find my money," as well as the piercing horn heard at the beginning, almost sound like AI-generated. A shame, because the replay value here is endless.

Darque, Mashudu – "Hamba Nawe"

Mashudu's voice is special, a gift to both this song and our ears. Darque composes something of an epic here, a groove so attuned to the intricacies of travel that it automatically takes the wheel, using a chop of "hamba nawe" as a built-in mantra, something you access by pressing play. The piano line that flourishes during the build-up around the 4:20 mark is truly life-giving, a reprieve that carries us from the magic Mashudu's cooked up into dark, menacing territory, in the flyest way possible.

LevyM, Caiiro – "Without Name"

LevyM and Caiiro take us to other worlds here. The synthesis is dark techno, all bare and spacious, leaving ample room for dancing. A vocal sample, doubtless AI-generated, punctuates the rhythm and creates neat sections that allow the music to move seamlessly, the result of endless days of sunshine.

Zakes Bantwini – "The Crossing (Osiyeza)" (feat. Msaki, Jesse Clegg, Skye Wanda)

Zakes Bantwini has a knack for big sounds, thick palettes, and glorious vocals that make your spirit levitate. He's also a master collaborator; his joint EP with Skye Wanda, who features here, was released earlier this year. He brings Msaki and Jesse Clegg, themselves issuers of an EP in March, onto "The Crossing." It reworks the Johnny Clegg classic into an Afro-house banger, extending the late icon's reach into the current era. Zakes Bantwini has issued another cultural manifesto, and we shall dutifully oblige on the dance floor.