Who Ushered In Amapiano to Nigeria?

Let’s take a quick dive into what is Amapiano… The African musical space shows the brotherhood in the continent, with artists from different countries collaborating to give the African audience good music to listen to. When it comes to music South Africans and Nigerians are always like siblings who eat and drink at the same table, as it is always a smooth ride and masterpiece whenever they collaborate.

Amapiano is a popular South African genre of music that came into the limelight in 2012. The last decade witnessed more Nigerian artists exploring the South African sound, with the likes of Wizkid, Davido, and May D… sampling the sound with Uhuru, Dj Maphorisa… A new decade is upon us, and as it was, it is ushering in new collaborations between the two countries, yet again. Nigerian artists and their South African counterparts, have different sounds but found a meeting point to make their sounds work and are generally accepted. No argument, whenever these two countries come together, a hit is produced.

Amongst the hits we had in the last decade are Davido featuring Mafikizolo for Tchelete, Soweto baby by Wizkid and Dj Maphorisa, Mafikizolo and May D’S Happiness, and Runtown featuring Nasty C on ‘Said’. Not forgetting African giant (Burna Boy) and AKA. These were good times with good sounds from the finest producers in Nigeria and South Africa.

A week ago, an argument ensued online between Wizkid Fc and 30BG on who brought Amapiano to Nigeria. As expected, everybody defended their fave. Some even included Burna Boy into the argument, with May D claiming he sampled Amapiano first. (Just for clarity's sake, May D’s “Happiness” with Mafikizolo was the first song amongst the arguing factions). ‘Happiness’ was released in 2013, a year before Davido’s “Tchelete” with Uhuru. But were these songs Amapiano? As controversial as this post may be, search yourself and give yourself a response to that question, if you are really familiar with what Amapiano is, you’ll have the answer.

No doubt, the collaboration between artists from South Africa and Nigeria brought Amapiano to our hearings, it has always been a household sound in South Africa. A new decade is here, the sound got modified and evolved with a whole lot of additions to the initial sound, yet again, from South Africa.

In late 2020, the sound began to gain recognition in Nigeria, as Nigeria is no doubt, the sitting state of government house in African music, while South Africa is the capital. The new Amapiano sound was eased into Nigeria again, with the likes of Dj Kaywise featuring Phyno on ‘Highway’, Dj Tarico’s Yaba Buluku, who later featured Burna Boy on the remix to gain more ground in the Nigerian musical space. The success of the original ‘Yaba Buluku’ was overshadowed by Kabza De Small’s ‘Sponono’ which featured Wizkid and Burna Boy.

The aftermath of these Amapiano songs heralded Nigerian music producers sampling the sound on almost all their beats for 2021, while many argued that the sound was overused in 2021 and will phase out with 2021, this is 2022, and we are still sampling it, having had a good hold of it. Zinoleesky never released a song without the Amapiano sound, all through 2021, with special mention to Niphkeys, his producer.

Nigerians quickly made Amapiano their own sound, and no hit song was released in late 2021 without the Amapiano sound. Then Davido collaborated with Adekunle Gold to get us high on their ‘High’ single. Whether Wizkid does not have a song of his own with the Amapiano sound or Davido does have songs of his own with the Amapiano sound does not matter to us. It is understandable if there is confusion amongst the fans of the top 3 artists from Nigeria, claiming their fave brought in Amapiano to Nigeria. If Zinoleesky, Rema or Dj Kaywise has a big fan base like theirs, probably this argument would have been dead on arrival. The only thing that matters to us is that we are having good sound being released by our faves.

Since Nigerians have made Amapiano their own sound, here is a list of songs you shouldn’t miss listening to;

Highway — DJ Kaywise, Phyno

Woman — Rema

Ko Por Ke (KPK) — Rexxie ft Mohbad

Ke Star (Remix) — Focalistic ft Davido

Squander — Falz ft Niniola

Hallelu — Masterkraft ft Zlatan Ibile & Bella Shmurda

Rocking — Zinoleesky

Monalisa — Lojay

Yaba Buluku — DJ Tarico & Burna Boy ft. Preck & Nelson Tivane, June 2021

I Got A Friend — Davido ft Mayokun & Sho Madjozi

Niniola — Too Sweet