DJ Zan D On Amapiano Artists “They Actually Live A Hip Hop Lifestyle”

DJ Zan D On Amapiano Artists “They Actually Live A Hip Hop Lifestyle”. Amapiano in South Africa has grown to become a widely loved genre not only locally, but internationally too. Music from the likes of Focalistic and Vigro Deep have travelled the globe and have gotten other audiences interested in South African culture and music.

We recently had an interview with DJ Zan D, Fif Laaa and Samke Mhlongo about their new YFM show, Threeway. They spoke on a number of topics relating to the SA Hip Hop industry. The three were specifically asked how they felt about the on going conversations around Amapiano overtaking Hip Hop in South Africa.

DJ Zan D explained that the funny thing about it is that although Amapiano artists are quite successful in what they do however they live a hip hop lifestyle that SA rappers are living too.

“The funny thing is you see all these Amapiano kats, producers, DJs doing well but they actually live a Hip Hop lifestyle. They drink Hennessy like the Hip Hop guys, they dress like the Hip Hop guys, they walk and talk like the Hip Hop guys. So they haven’t really overtaken Hip Hop, it’s just a different shift in the music. And even the style of the music, they rap on the songs so still like taking stuff from Hip Hop.“

“It’s just obviously the beat sounds different, and it seems like they’re doing so much better but if you look at the whole genre and the industry in general, Hip Hop gets more money, gets more deals. Nasty C is international, he’s in Atlanta right now so Hip Hop is still bigger in that extent. It’s just that Mapiano, they got all the big songs in the streets, the hit songs and Hip Hop has kind of gone back to like the underground hip hop heads.” He explained.

He continued to say that on their new show on YFM they want to show that Hip-Hop isn’t dead. Samke explained that currently we’re seeing a lot of Hip Hop artists jump onto Amapiano songs and used Khuli Chana’s new release Buyile as an example of a song that has a piano beat but is still a Hip Hop song. He mentioned the song can still play on a show like theirs so it’s not necessarily like they are closing the door for music like that.

Catch DJ Zan D, Fif Laaa and Samke on the Threeway every Thursday from 9pm to 12am on YFM.