As amapiano continues to grow, it’s a real privilege to welcome Uncle Waffles to our cover this month. Real name Lungelihle Zwane, she grew up in Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) before moving to South Africa, and is another artist who started coming to the fore during lockdown, partly after a video of her DJing and dancing went viral. She was soon having one of her tracks sampled by Beyoncé, and was the first amapiano DJ to play the main stage at Coachella last year. The amapiano princess’ rapid journey into
a global phenomenon is expertly told this issue by Makua Adimora from page 78 onwards.
Elsewhere, we have a fascinating piece by Tazmé Pillay on how a new rave scene is growing in South Africa which is harder, faster and queerer (page 92); a piece on bio-sonification, which is the creation of sound from plants, and how forward-thinking artists are dabbling with this process (page 99); we visit Manchester-based DJ/producer Finn at home to find out what makes him tick (p104); hang with Terry Farley, Stuart Patterson and Dave Jarvis as they celebrate 25 years of Faith (p118), and lots more besides.
I’ve been galavanting about in recent weeks and report back from Sónar and Glastonbury (pages 111 and 131), two of my favourite festivals in the world, and we have all the usual regular features as well.
Hope you enjoy the issue.
Carl Loben
Editor