Hyper-fast electronic beats race in pace with synthesized pan flutes and marimbas, overlayed with festive call-and-response chants. Hand claps and chipmunked vocal snippets complete the broiling stew. On hard dirt lots, surrounded by crowds of onlookers, giant-butted clowns dance manically, kicking and stomping to the cartoonishly jubilant, psychedelic music. This is (or was) Shangaan electro.
In South Africa’s Limpopo region, Shangaan electro (locally known as Tsonga electro) was birthed around 2005, and in half a decade it had bubbled…
