DORMANTYOUTH

GQOM WAVES: BORDERS & THE FLEXIBLE NARRATIVE OF AFRICAN MUSIC

Gqom Waves: Borders & the Flexible Narrative of African Music, is a short mix composed of music that was made from sampling Gqom sounds, a music genre born & cultivated in the rural hills of KZN, South Africa. This genre came out of the minds of experimental club kids using pirated music production software. The mix speaks of the transgressive power of musical innovation, where economic, social and physical borders have not stopped the world from moving their bodies to its frequency. The voices heard overlayed in this mix, are from those beyond the African continent who have embraced the sound and have added samples of their own country's familiarity in tone & cadence to make new borderless, hybrid genres such as UK Gqom.

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ABOUT THE ARTIST
DORMANTYOUTH is the DJ alias of Johannesburg based, non-binary architect, Thelma Ndebele. Their interest in the intersection of music & architecture led to them using DJing as a research method for their master’s dissertation (GSA, UJ) on mixing music as an act of temporal place-making within the night club space.

︎: @dormantyouth
︎: @dormantyouth
︎: Boiler Room