The West-Yorkshire-based DJ is one of the rising stars of the UK’s amapiano club scene, a community knit together by a shared affinity for amapiano, the soundtrack of the southern African diasporan club experience.
You can feel the bass rattling in your bones.
Singing at the top of our lungs, our bodies moving in unison to the music with hedonistic abandon. If your clothes aren’t clinging to your body when the sun comes up, you’re doing it wrong. The air is thick and saccharine, brightly painted vapes and red solo cups filled with Hennessy and Coke erupting in a kaleidoscope of colour.
At the centre of this nice time is MQ, dark shades on and head bopping to the ‘piano mix, in command of the dance floor. He is at home in the DJ booth.
That level of cool takes practice. “When I performed for the first time, my hands were actually shaking,” MQ says.
DJ MQ, born Maqhawe Ndlovu in Pretoria, South Africa in 2003, is reminiscing about the first amapiano gig he played in an out-of-the-way venue in Leeds at 17. Amapiano, meaning “the pianos” in Zulu, is a subgenre of house music born in the townships of Johannesburg, South Africa in the mid-2010s, and carried across continents by pioneering artists such as Kabza De Small and DJ Maphorisa, collectively known as the Scorpion Kings, onto dancefloors across the globe.
Amapiano is distinguished by pitched-up piano melodies, a speaker-shaking log drum and catchy vocals. It is a sound that bridges gaps between Black experiences, informed by deep house, jazz and South Africa’s kwaito music, merging old school songs, the sounds of Lebo Mathosa and Malaika we grew up with, with piano beats.
It calls to the past and it sounds like home.
In 2019, this new wave of house music gained mainstream and crossover success, culminating in a BET Best New Artist award for Zimbabwean-South African amapiano artist Sha Sha in 2020. Today, amapiano artists are headlining global festivals and the Scorpion Kings performed a sold-out show at the iconic London club, Printworks, last December.
MQ jokingly admits that the first time he heard amapiano, he dismissed the genre as a passing fad. “I remember thinking, ‘What is this? What is going on in South Africa?’” he adds mockingly.
A true child of the Internet, MQ came to DJing by way of posting mixes on Snapchat and YouTube, and when those blew up, he was approached by a local promoter to perform in front of a live audience. “I had only made mixes on my phone, not on the actual decks, so when I was DJing that night, I needed someone to guide me on the decks.”
The final verdict of that first event? MQ shrugs. “I didn’t like it, but I said I would learn from it.” A fellow DJ and amapiano producer, Manchester-based DJ Maniac, took the novice under his wing, and the only thing shaking now is the crowd.
“The first time I heard amapiano, I remember thinking, ‘What is this? What is going on in South Africa?’”
DJ MQ
The 19-year-old DJ, now based in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, is one of the rising stars of the UK’s amapiano club scene, a community knit together by a shared affinity for amapiano, the soundtrack of the southern African diasporan club experience.
Although most ‘piano, songs hardly feature any English, their themes of success and soft living are universal, and the music just feels good. “Last night, I was DJing amapiano and there was a white boy who came and asked for the name of a song I played during my set,” MQ shares. “My response was, ‘Huh? The song that’s playing right now?’ and he’s like, ‘Yes, I want it.’ So, when he bucked out his playlist, it was just amapiano. That makes me happy. It’s exciting.”
When MQ prepares for a set, naturally, it involves a lot of time on the Internet, crafting the perfect track list, a meticulous schedule kept in the Notes app on his phone and travelling the day before for an out-of-town gig. And a pair of black sunglasses, the same pair, every time. “Everyone knows it’s my signature,” he adds cheekily.
After our interview, MQ must prepare for a weekend in Birmingham with two back-to-back nightclub performances. It’s safe to say that the Birmingham crowd is among his favourites. “Every time there’s an amapiano event, there’s always someone ready to go up,” MQ says. He tells of one Birmingham show where “everyone was screaming my name. I thought to myself, ‘Wow, this is crazy.’ I don’t smile when DJing but that got me smiling.”
Then, during the week, MQ juggles two jobs as a carer and working in a factory. As an up-and-comer in the DJ game, MQ is responsible for all his travel and accommodation expenses, and then there’s the occasional wrangle with promoters to be paid on time. I remark about his busy schedule. “It’s hard work but I’m just trying to get there,” he responds with a smile. By there, MQ means KONKA, a popular nightclub in Soweto, South Africa, a baller’s playground and the home of sun-kissed revelry to the sounds of amapiano. Until then, the grind continues.
If you’re reading this article and are still trying to figure out what we’re on about music-wise, check out our beginner’s guide to amapiano playlist. “Look for amapiano songs that are mixed with R&B or Afrobeats songs mixed with amapiano beats,” says MQ. “Ease your way into it, see what you think, then you can hop into the gqong-gqong [imitates a log drum].”