Afro house is a subgenre of House that originated in South Africa by fusing elements of Deep House and Southern African Music, most notably the preceding Kwaito. It is characterized by a relaxing, hypnotizing groove incorporating drums such as shakers and congas on top of a four-on-the-floor House beat playing at around 120 BPM. Although it may occasionally share similarities with Tribal House, it typically has a deeper, more organic, soulful and melodic sound, even drawing from Progressive House in some cases.
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Afro house is a subgenre of House that originated in South Africa by fusing elements of Deep House and Southern African Music, most notably the preceding Kwaito. It is characterized by a relaxing, hypnotizing groove incorporating drums such as shakers and congas on top of a four-on-the-floor House beat playing at around 120 BPM. Although it may occasionally share similarities with Tribal House, it typically has a deeper, more organic, soulful and melodic sound, even drawing from Progressive House in some cases. Another common trait is sampling vocals from various African Music or soulful, original features.
Afro house emerged around the mid-2000s, with Black Coffee being considered the leading pioneer. His label Soulistic Music with artists like Culoe de Song and Da Capo largely contributed to establishing the genre in the following years. It first achieved domestic success by becoming the dominant club sound in the country, but also through collaborations with local singers like Bucie. From the early 2010s, it began to spread outside South Africa by artists such as Pablo Fierro and Djeff. The Madorasindahouse Youtube channel and MoBlack Records also started to play a significant role in popularizing the genre.
The genre truly blew up in the mid-to-late 2010s. The aforementioned DJs grew worldwide and were joined by new, prominent South African artists like THEMBA, Shimza and Sun-El Musician. Afro house has largely spread to various other countries, with Italian Go Deeva Records becoming a leading label, and new international artists like Daniel Rateuke, FNX Omar and Sparrow & Barbossa. The genre also attracted some mainstream DJs like Diplo and started to appear on big labels Spinnin' Deep and Defected Records, which would later launch their afro house-dedicated sublabel Sondela Recordings. It also began to cross over with and influence other late 2010s house trends (most notably so-called "melodic house" and organic house). Entering the 2020s, afro house became much more of a worldwide phenomenon than a strictly South African genre, where it started to decline in popularity in favour of a newly-born, local style Amapiano.
