Afro house
Afro house
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Afro house

Afro house (also written as Afro-house or Afrohouse) is a sub-genre of house music mainly developed in South Africa. The genre emerged in the 1990s. This musical style fuses elements of traditional house with African rhythms and sounds, incorporating instruments such as the saxophone, piano and synthesizers, as well as vocals in various African languages.

Afro house may have emerged after or at the same time as Kwaito started to appear in South Africa. The music genre is principally a blend of traditional house, kwaito, mbaqanga, deep house, tribal house, and soulful house. It can feature the various South African languages within the music. The BPM commonly shifts between 80 and 122 and, in some instances, can even reach 160 BPM.

The etymology of the name uses the prefix 'afro' (meaning anything relating to Africa and African culture) and the suffix, 'house', referring to the main genre of house music.

South African record label Afrotainment (Ezase Afro) housed one of the first notable female Afro house artists, DJ Cndo, in the early 2000s. Her 2007 debut album, Finest Lady of House Vol.1, obtained gold record status.

Vocalist Bucie is regarded as "the female voice of South African house music", including Afro house, particularly with regard her Afro house hit single "Superman" which was produced by Black Coffee in 2009 and was later sampled by Drake in 2017 for his More Life album featuring Jorja Smith. British singer Seal has stated that he likes her music and mentioned that Bucie is "a great singer and artist".

In 2012, DJ Zinhle, who released the hit song "My Name Is" featuring Busiswa, co-founded Fuse Academy, a DJ academy specifically for female DJs, together with Nomdeni Mdaki.

In 2016, singer Alicia Keys enlisted Black Coffee to create a remix of her track "In Common", which was recognized and well received internationally. Zimbabwean singer and songwriter Jackie Queens launched her record label Bae Electronica, which solely showcases female house artists such as Thandi Draai, who has been "heralded as SA house music's femmetastic triple-threat" according to Mixmag.

Ostensibly before it was 'officially' named and categorized as a sub-genre, it was just referred to as simply, "house".

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