The Log Drum Lands
From Pretoria and Johannesburg to a Friday night in Accra
Amapiano spread over WhatsApp, minibus taxis and phones before reaching global stages; now Accra promoters book its South African acts in person.
Enzo, Accra, Friday 8 May 2026. Those were the room and the date in an announcement Chilling In Ghana posted on 23 April. It said South African DJ and record producer Uncle Waffles was set to bring her amapiano sets to Accra for the first time. The promoter was D'Global Entertainment, the team behind the Casa Prive events, which the outlet said had featured South African musicians before.
A second headline from the same outlet followed on 7 October 2026. It said producer Dlala Thukzin would perform in Ghana for the first time, at Accra House Fest 2026. Both are advance announcements, and neither page reports whether the nights went ahead. What the two announcements do show is Accra promoters bringing South African acts to the city to play in person, not only through people's phones.
The sound those acts carry started far from Accra, and where exactly is still argued. Red Bull reports that some place its birth in the townships of Johannesburg. Others point to its similarity to Bacardi House and say it came out of Pretoria. The Recording Academy's GRAMMY.com says amapiano "may have started in the townships of South Africa, but it didn't stay there."
GRAMMY.com describes young township producers using affordable personal computers and free production software to blend deep house and jazz with kwaito. Red Bull says the name loosely translates to "the pianos", after the genre's piano melodies. The part that sets amapiano apart is the log drum, which GRAMMY.com explains is a synthesized bass sound that imitates the deep tones of a traditional log drum. It is not a physical instrument. Speaking to Red Bull, Kabza De Small credited MDU aka TRP with finding it: "these boys like experimenting. They always check out new plug-ins. So when Mdu figured it out, he ran with it."
For a while it moved without official help. Red Bull says the sound first travelled underground, over WhatsApp and in minibus taxis, and that its proponents initially met resistance getting it onto South African radio. The pandemic changed the channel. Spotify reports that Kabza De Small and DJ Maphorisa had to cancel their Scorpion Kings live show in 2020, so they launched PianoHub TV. Over the same stretch, Spotify says, amapiano streams on its platform more than doubled, from 34 million in 2019 to 102 million by the end of the first year of lockdown. Spotify puts 84 per cent of the genre's streams on mobile phones.
The larger numbers also come from Spotify. Music Business Worldwide, citing the platform, reports 1.4 billion amapiano streams in 2023, with the United States and the United Kingdom behind only South Africa. The same data show the genre's base is still at home. In 2023, 55 per cent of streams came from South Africa and 78 per cent from sub-Saharan Africa. Listeners skew young: Spotify says 40 per cent of streams come from people aged 18 to 24, and another 22 per cent from those aged 25 to 29.
Across the continent, Red Bull credits "Champion Sound", by Nigeria's Davido and South Africa's Focalistic, with helping other African artists take up amapiano. It says some listeners even mistook Nigeria for the genre's birthplace. GRAMMY.com lists the local versions that followed: Afropiano in Nigeria, bongopiano in Tanzania, Gqom 2.0 in South Africa and bique in Mozambique. GRAMMY.com also reports that singer Boohle, who moved from gospel and Afropop to amapiano, has toured Dubai, Amsterdam and many African countries. In 2022, according to Wikipedia, the online store Beatport gave the genre its own charts and playlists.
The biggest stage so far belongs to Tyla. GRAMMY.com says the South African singer won the first GRAMMY for Best African Music Performance in February 2024. The two outlets describe her chart record for "Water" differently. Red Bull calls it the first song by a South African soloist to enter the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 55 years. GRAMMY.com calls it the first African song on the chart since 1968.
One question remains open. GRAMMY.com asks how the genre's pioneers and grassroots creators will keep benefiting from its global success.
The list of local versions suggests one reason the sound travels. Afropiano, bongopiano, bique and Gqom 2.0 each carry a local name, yet every version keeps the same thing at its centre: a drum that is not a drum. A synthesized sound built on free software and shared over WhatsApp may adapt more easily than an instrument that needs a player. Kabza De Small's account points the same way, toward producers who keep checking out new plug-ins.
The strongest counter-reading is in the same data. If 55 per cent of 2023 streams came from South Africa and 78 per cent from sub-Saharan Africa, the global story may be wider than it is deep. Those figures also come from Spotify. A tour stop in Dubai and a South African headliner at Enzo can sit beside a listening base that has mostly stayed home.
For Accra, the reported moves so far run in one direction: South African acts booked in. Ghana is not on GRAMMY.com's list of local fusions. Our view would change if Ghanaian outlets began naming local producers working with the log drum, or if Ghana-specific listening figures appeared. GRAMMY.com's question about pioneers applies here too.
Who in Accra plays it back is still open. The drum has landed.
“Every version keeps the same thing at its centre: a drum that is not a drum.”
- GRAMMY.com: Amapiano's Decade-Long Journey To Global Dominance
- Red Bull: How Amapiano Took Over The World
- Spotify News: How a Global Pandemic Pushed Amapiano to the World
- Music Business Worldwide: Amapiano streams exploded by 5,668% on Spotify
- Chilling In Ghana: Uncle Waffles in Accra
- Wikipedia: Amapiano