After South African singer Tyla won the inaugural golden gramophone for Best African Music Performance at the 2024 GRAMMYs award show, many likely wondered why her international breakout single “Water” garnered such global appeal.
Beyond the R&B sensibilities that made its sound approachable to Western audiences, what really drew crowds to “Water” was the vitality of South African dance and elements of amapiano — a subgenre of house and a child of kwaito, South Africa’s post-Apartheid freedom sound. Punctuated by amapiano’s log…
