Artists You Should Know: Beguile Yourself with the Music of Amapiano Ambassadors Native Soul

Native Soul creates entrancing electronic dance music born from a mix of styles and genres made popular in South Africa. The Pretoria-based duo — comprised of Alfred Mhlanga and Kgotatso Tshabalala — has released four albums to date since their formation in 2019 at the ripe ages of 18 and 19 years old. Quickly establishing themselves as worthy ambassadors of both amapiano and gqom on their instrumental first album Teenage Dreams.

Native Soul’s debut revealed the producer duo’s talents for crafting elusively alluring and electrifying soundscapes, relying heavily on the galvanizing exchanges of piano-drum-synthesizers that interlace amapiano. Every track on the record unfolds as this borderline cinematic and exceptionally paced crescendo. One that edges you forward via the vigorous melodies that evolve from drummed bass lines into swelling mixtures of jazz, folk, afro, deep, and tech house, as well as kwaito and dibacardi.

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Their sophomore album Native Roots continued to coalesce their sound around amapiano while also adding a cast of contemporaries to flesh out their music. Whether that’s on the hypnotic opening track “Labo Bhuti” (feat. Blaq K & Mrs Rain) or the explosively frenetic “Forth Line” (feat. Tshepzin Loco). For their 2023 follow-up Rise Up they joined forces with Jacksman (who also appeared on their second album) to propel themselves into even more futuristic iterations of their constantly morphing amapiano sound.

Only two months into the new year Native Soul dropped its colossal fourth album Undisputed, a sizzling and sprawling collection that ambitiously ups the ante on everything they’ve released thus far. Embracing both their love of enthralling instrumentation and the inclusion of choice features that only enhance the energies that course through their tracks. Be that on the droning fixations of “Siren” or the absolutely stacked but mesmeric “Hello” (feat. Aembu, Jacksman, Kha Ching Vocals, Blaq Boy ZA).