Mzansi Beat Code, by Spoek Mathambo

Mzansi Beat Code

by Spoek Mathambo

supported by

	/

Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Purchasable with gift card

$9 USD or more
Full Digital Discography

12

releases

Get all 12 SPOEK MATHAMBO releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Sibabonile, GQIRHA: Song For The Medicine Man, The Prophet EP, Siyalapha, Buya Embo EP, Afro Jazz Giants 1: Ratau Instrumentals, Afro Jazz Giants 1: Ratau, Mshini Wam (DELUXE EDITION), and 4 more. , and , .

Purchasable with gift card

$72.80 USD or more (35% OFF)

1.	Want Ur Love 02:58	buy track
2.	Black Rose 06:36	buy track
3.	Blast Fi Mi 05:17	buy track
4.	Landed 03:58	buy track
5.	The Mountain 05:42	buy track
6.	Volcan 02:24	buy track
7.	Libalela 05:54	buy track
8.	I Found U 05:33	buy track
9.	Nothing's Ever Perfect 03:39	buy track
10.	Sifun'imali Yethu 03:47	buy track
11.	No Congo No Cellphone 04:11	buy track
12.	Spoek Mathambo International Airport (Border Patrol Dub) 03:04	buy track
13.	Pula 05:02	buy track

about

Mzansi Beat Code is Spoek Mathambo's fifth solo album, the latest salvo of a decade-plus-long career during which the rapper/producer has established himself as one of South Africa's primary contributors to the global dance-music zeitgeist. It is also a far-flung, sociopolitical unification statement that, in one form or another, isn't new to Spoek. But unlike prior attempts, Mzansi Beat Code doesn't simply consider and curate the diverse sounds of South Africa's nine provinces; it is a fully formed point of view that places the 34-year-old musician at the country's creative center.

The focus, as it's often been for Spoek (born Nthato Mokgata), is to "de-exoticize" South Africa's post-Apartheid cultural history, its internal struggles, and its place in the global slipstream. In his music, such goals have rarely taken the form of straightforward political lyrics. Instead, as a product of the hip-hop/house era who in his teens created a music 'zine that chronicled SA's sonic networks, Mathambo has always been more focused on freeing and uniting posteriors. That's appropriate, since in Mzansi, a widely adapted Xhosa word for the republic, there are more beat codes than tribal languages.

Throughout his career, Spoek has complemented his own recordings of rap-meets-dance music ("Township Tech" to some) with projects like 2009-10's H.I.V.I.P. DJ mixes, 30-40-minute bursts of local kwaito/house/rap/electro from all over SA that became Internet sensations, and used the social paranoia of the country's AIDS pandemic as its thematic jump-off point. Or there was Future Sound of Mzansi, the 2015 documentary Spoek directed with filmmaker Lebogang Rasethaba, profiling SA's biggest electronic artists, DJs and dance-music styles, still segregated from one another 20 years after Apartheid's end. The past two years found him partnering with musicians he met making Future Sound; in the bands/collectives Batuk and Fantasma, Mathambo brought together some of SA's finest talents under the rhythmic ideals of the worldwide funkadelic.

Mzansi Beat Code reunites many of these collaborators back at Spoek's house, building on his lifelong pursuit of a pan-Mzansi aesthetic while also widening the garden of SA's delights to incorporate global vibes. House music being SA's hometown sound, it is the album's cornerstone. Yet in Mzansi, house is less a genre than an assortment of adjacent galaxies — and it's the variety encompassed in this universe that provides the album's best thrills.

At times, the music is extraordinarily catchy, direct without being obvious. "Want Ur Love" and "I Found U," a pair of tracks that feature Kajama (the singing sisters, Nandi and Nongoma Ndlovu) and members of Fantasma (guitarist Andre Geldenhuys, multi-instrumentalist Bhekisenzo Cele and Bacardi house mastermind, DJ Spoko) are easily understood, popular attractions — deep house grooves, by turns ribald and soulful. Yet the former is a loud, sometimes coarse, proclamation in favor of same-sex love, while the latter is steeped in sexual melancholy that is almost spiritual.

More often, the fusion of sounds speaks directly to SA's growing reputation as a prime electronic music melting pot, with Spoek as one of its most forward-thinking chefs. The tracks with Johannesburg singer/songwriter Loui Lvndon include a slice of over-sexed industrial soul ("Landed") and a break-up pop-soul confection that sounds like an alternate-world R. Kelly production ("Nothing's Ever Perfect"). "Volcan," a Spanish-language collaboration with Mexican singer Ceci Bastida, spotlights the hyperactive kinship of punk rock, soca and shangaan electro. And then there's "The Mountain," with Mathambo orchestrating a meeting of rhythm giants — Spoko, Pretoria DJ Mujava (whose 2008 track "Township Funk" was one of SA dance-music's biggest hits) and American jazz drummer Guillermo Brown in his soul-singing Pegasus Warning guise — into a martial-beat, Bacardi house stormer.

After all the hybrid futurism, it's extraordinary and appropriate that "Pula," the track which ends Mzansi Beat Code, opens with a groove that discerning Western listeners of a certain age will find quite familiar: the jaiva, or township jive, that was lifted for both Malcolm McLaren's "Double Dutch" and much of Paul Simon's Graceland. It is a reminder that Anglo artists have been biting parts of this beat code for quite a while, without unlocking it. Of course in Spoek's house, such obvious reminders are only a gateway. By the end of its five minutes, "Pula" has brought back Spoko, but also added the young producer Mash.O, the chanting kids of the rural community of Platfontein, and contemporized that jive.

credits

released March 5, 2017

license

about

SPOEK MATHAMBO Johannesburg, South Africa

South African song writer/producer interested in the outer realms of Hip-Hop and electronic music

contact / help

Contact SPOEK MATHAMBO

Streaming and
Download help

Report this album or account

If you like Mzansi Beat Code, you may also like:

İstikrarlı Hayal Hakikattir
by Gaye Su Akyol

supported by 4 fans who also own “Mzansi Beat Code”

Amazing album, the style is so unique! 😍 originallifeline
go to album
JOOLA JAZZ
by IBAAKU

Influenced by spiritual jazz, Afrobeat, and various forms of African club music, the Senegalese producer's grooves contain multitudes. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 25, 2024
go to album
Gùndo Fara
by Zantogola

The debut EP by Zantogola fuses West African popular rhythms, highlife and afrobeat with hip hop, reggae and jazz. Bandcamp New & Notable Nov 30, 2018
go to album
Madrugada EP
by Alma Negra

featured on Bandcamp Radio Mar 12, 2024
go to album
The Cycle
by Raz & Afla

featured on Bandcamp Radio Oct 24, 2022
go to album
Afrochawi
by Hazem B

An ebuillent conversation between Berber music and Afrohouse by Paris producer Hazem B; fusion music at its most potent and effective. Bandcamp New & Notable May 11, 2022
go to album
SMS for Location, Vol. 4
by Moonshine

Montreal's Moonshine collective embarks on a 19-track tour of the global electronic landscape, with stop-offs in the UK, Paris, and the DRC. Bandcamp New & Notable Jun 18, 2021
go to album