Gqom Pioneer DJ Lag strikes an inclusive balance in ‘Southside Mixtape’

It’s well after midnight at And Club – known affectionately as & to regulars – in Joburg’s Newtown precinct that is, as its name suggests, a diversely inclusive space. Behind the decks, South African dance music innovator DJ Lag wears his signature facial expression – deeply focused, clinical, almost aloof. His appearance at one of &’s headline nights is impromptu – not advertised as part of the event’s planned line-up. The inclusion visibly delights the partygoers. With the seamless mixing of tracks during his set, Lag makes the club heave with the movement of dancing revellers. He edges the limits of the club’s powerful sound system - each dancing body feels imminently combustible.

Hours later, he’s on a flight to kick off a world tour in England which includes dates in Spain, France, and the US.

With his new 12-track Southside Mixtape released earlier this month, DJ Lag audibly widens the palette of influences that contribute to his distinctive gqom sound. The album’s opener, NgyaSindelwa, sets the tone emphatically. It’s a pulsating track, full of drum beats as heavenly as the song’s title. Multi-platinum pop singer Zee Nxumalo rides over the rhythm with intuitive ease. The second track, GQTECH, ups the ante by stringing together melodies and chord progressions adopted from the globally popular electronic dance music (EDM) sound. Wawawa, a collaboration with rising gqom vocalist Thobeka, is the lead single of the album, showcasing DJ Lag’s percussive complexity with bouncy drum patterns varied enough in arrangement and tone to be unpredictable throughout. The other standout gqom songs on the album are RSVP, WTF and Detroit Rave.

But the album’s greatest achievement isn’t the artist’s mastery of a style of EDM he helped innovate. Instead, Southside Mixtape is most creative where it incorporates other styles of dance music gaining popularity locally and globally.

Amapiano’s pervasive influence on music here and overseas is highlighted. NgyaGowa, featuring DJ Maphorisa, marries gqom and amapiano, two styles of dance music usually at opposite ends of the local groove spectrum. Afrotech, the transcendental cousin of Afro-house, exerts its influence on Shona Malanga. And “3 Step”, the style of music named for its signature triple successive drum kicks, drives Woza and Yey’Wena.

“I’m known for gqom,” says DJ Lag. “I’ll never move away from this style. It’s my child - I can’t leave it. Yes, I’ll try other sounds, but I’ll never commit to Afrotech, 3 Step or amapiano.”

I want to take gqom out of Joburg’s underground clubs and make it mainstream.

—  DJ LAG

Lwazi Asanda Gwala became the acronym Lag when he started to DJ at parties in Durban’s Clermont township at 14 years old. It was around 2010 that Lag began producing his own music using the FL Studio software he still uses today. When the Naked Boyz, a DJ duo born and bred in Durban, released Ithoyizi, a riff on the tribal house then penetrating the Durban party scene, the song’s popularity sparked what would become gqom. DJ Lag was one of the first out of the gate alongside Sbucardo Da DJ and Rude Boyz with a release that emulated the Ithoyizi sound. The music spread at parties, through WhatsApp – and then through the network of taxis that doubled as mobile sound systems.

Lag started to play regularly at Uhuru, a popular nightclub in Durban where he launched his music career. With consistent releases, club residencies and national tours, Lag worked his way up to his first international tour in 2016. For years, the stages he played on grew in size, his cheques became heavier, and his collaborators higher up the A-list, including a track with Beyoncé.

Partly owing to the all-consuming local popularity of amapiano and years spent touring abroad, returning only to renew travel documents, Lag’s musical connection to the South African dance music scene grew tenuous. Now Southside Mixtape is the culmination of Lag’s efforts to re-establish himself and gqom as important to the multifarious South African dance music ecosystem.

“My music doesn’t focus on one sound. I try to ensure that people abroad have something and people in Mzansi have their thing. I try strike a balance when I release music so all kinds of crowds love my music.”

Describing what Durban nightlife is like now, Lag says, “Everything’s gone back to the time when I used to play at Uhuru. People are going crazy for gqom all over again. I was in Durban a few weeks ago and every club I went to, underground or premium, was playing gqom. Some DJs played amapiano, but it was mostly gqom.”

For the next phase of his career, his sights are set 570km inland. Joburg is beginning to respond to the contemporaneous efforts by artists, promoters, punters and fringe nightclubs to find a home for the reinvented gqom sound that offers an alternative to the chokingly popular amapiano.

“South Africans are creative. They keep coming up with new styles of music. People are tired of amapiano. I want to take gqom out of Joburg’s underground clubs and make it mainstream.”