SA house music expands its London beat

YFM DJ Da Kruk is taking SA house music to London

YFM DJ Da Kruk is taking SA house music to London

Published Apr 12, 2017

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SOUTH Africa is one of the biggest exporters of house music in the world.

It is for this reason that Kutloano “Da Kruk” Nhlapo took the opportunity to host a segment on London-based radio station The Beat 103.6FM.

The YFM DJ hosts two shows on the youth radio station, The Players Club and Sinday Social, and has now partnered with UK-based afro house DJ Mr SILK to bring a taste of South African house music to the world.

“The SA house music scene is growing rapidly because of the diversity and the eclectic taste of the UK community. Artists like Black Coffee can now fill arenas and we’ve seen younger artists, DJs and producers also sign and release with UK-based labels and even tour the country,” said Nhlapo.

His weekly SA house music news segment, Da Kruk’s Report, is hosted on Mr SILK’s weekly Afro Vocal Tribal House show, The Drums.

“I’m honestly authentically South African on the show, to combat any stereotypes the global consumer might have about us by telling the precise story of the South African music scene. The mindset is always and will always be ‘from Africa to the world’,” he said.

Nhlapo was connected to Mr SILK through artist and designer Maria McCloy. After three months of secretly listening to The Players Club, Mr SILK reached out to Nhlapo and proposed the opportunity. Since December the feature has attracted bigger global appeal.

“It has been successful, solely based on the fact that South Africa is such a big exporter of the genre, but there are no credible local mainstream media platforms that narrate our scene and profile our artists to the global consumer. So consumers have started wanting more than just the great South African music we’ve been giving them, thus the segment puts a picture to our sound,” he said.

Nhlapo has also had the chance to release some music internationally. Dream Afrika was featured on the Miami Winter Music 2017 compilation Unity Through Sound, mixed by legendary US producer and DJ N’dinga Gaba.

“I worked on the song with Pretoria based duo Stones & Bones. DJ N'dinga Gaba loved it so much that we're talking about working on other projects set to drop later in the year.”

In addition to hosting his shows and being a club DJ, Nhlapo plans to get into the international markets even more.

“Using content, radio and music I’m going to further penetrate that market. I’ll also be hosting my annual events locally.”

Nhlapo is also planning on a European tour for later this year.

The Drums Afro House Show airs every Thursday at 11pm - 1am Central African time and can be streamed on http://www.thebeat1036.com

@mane_mpi

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