Aesthetic Exploration : Afro House

 

Afro House is a subgenre of house music that originated in the late ’90s with strong ties to South Africa.  One of the biggest contributors to the success and popularity of Afro House is DJ Black Coffee who developed the genre from its South African roots from artists like Brenda Fassie, Malaika and Chimora.  The music is a subgenre of house music that takes a fusion of Tribal, Kwaito and Deep House music.  The music sticks out for its use of African instruments in its percussion like bongos, claves and congas that give it a traditional and organic feel while combining it with Deep and Soulful House.  As such the visual aesthetic that are paired with this kind of music can be seen through album art and song covers instilling a spiritual feel through organic colors and a natural feel.

https://keinemusik.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/keinemusik-the-rapture-pt-iii-km066-digital-scaled.jpghttps://keinemusik.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/keinemusik-the-rapture-pt-iii-km066-digital-scaled.jpg

DJ Black Coffee is often known as the god father of Afro House for how long he has dominated the DJ scene and through his influence in Afro House.  From his humble origins in South Africa he received international recognition through a Red Bull Music Academy award that gave him his exposure.  From there Afro House has developed into a sound and aesthetic known world wide that does not just call South Africa home now.  In fact it has become so popular that artists and DJ’s are now starting to build and develop new subgenres within Afro House.  For example, Keinemusik a group of DJ’s originating from Germany have gained traction in the music industry for their sound that display strong resemblances to Afro House, some songs being in that genre and some being subgenres of it.  Keinemusik gained so much popularity for their sound that they even collaborated with Black Coffee to make the track “The Rapture Pt. III” which can be seen in the song cover above.  The artists have also performed sets together at venues for their popularity and similarity in style and music.

The artists choice of apparel during their sets is also a resemblance of their style of music.  While Melodic Progressive Techno artist Anyma chooses to wear very interesting and expressive futuristic outfits for his sets as seen on the left, Afro House artists Black Coffee and Keinemusik choose to be simple and stray away from anything crazy as seen on the right.  Though this is not a rule or always the case for artists of these genres it is noticed enough for it to add to the aesthetic of Afro House being minimalistic and straying away from the flashy outfits with futuristic accessories.

[left] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F8oWtcRaAAAmB37?format=jpg&name=large

[right] https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/kKr5doaAhjsDgT5Ol05LIXxIEljHy8HxXGcltThMX1-tfKKWTZFQ75Q_wIoDNpjI2dMCWcZPP9oNUkxcelooTfB2HnA_Bp2-=s1000

Afro House can attest a lot of its popularity to the recent rise in interest in electronic music in general and the DJ sets that they perform.  With the rise of any genre comes genre diversification and evolution so the emergence of Afro House in the electronic scene and the development of its aesthetic is understandable.

[left] https://keinemusik.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/keinemusik-km-tulum-1080x1080px-benji.jpg

[right] https://blog.biletino.com/file/2022/05/black-coffee-dj-biletino-blog-27898.jpg

 

Resources

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro_house#:~:text=Afro%20house%20(also%20spelled%20as,genre%20emerged%20in%20the%201990s. [2] https://pressureradio.com/afro-house/#:~:text=Afro%20House%20music%20roots%20will,to%20emigrate%20to%20South%20Africa.