5 Things You Should Know About Amapiano DJ Da Kurk. With the South African music genre now dominating commercial radio and becoming one of the global phenomenon, Da Kruk is one of the people who contributed a lot in the genre.
Check out these five facts about Da Kurk:
1 International DJ and music producer Kutloano “Da Kruk” Nhlapo has always been a big lover of what’s trending in local culture.
2 Da Kruk became a correspondent for Drums Radio, a London radio station, which he used to introduce, educate and expose the UK audience to artists whose sound was slowly budding post-2019. He also has another radio show in America called the African Syndicate, which he broadcasts from SA every Wednesday. “When I left YFM in 2019, instead of looking for another radio job in SA, I started linking up with a lot of people in the UK. I chose Europe based on the huge community they have from the Diaspora. I started curating my radio show AmaInternational based on the talent found in the genre I had faith in.”
3 He is one of the Amapiano pioneers. “So I started pushing the sound when I was still a radio presenter at YFM in 2016, with a show we used to call Amapiano Hour. At the time, I was the first person to play the songs on commercial radio, which helped give a lot of artists their big break. Artists like Josiah De Disciple, MFR Souls, De Mthuda, Gaba Cannal who are now household names. Everyone used to overlook the sound and thought amapiano would never last through the years as it has, this was before Scorpion Kings (DJ Maphorisa and Kabza de Small) made amapiano by inserting vocals on it.”
4 The 33-year-old explains that his moniker stems from the hustling spirit that he was known for in high school. He would sell any and everything just to make some money. As a young teen from Daveyton, Ekurhuleni, Da Kurk’s ear for music was highly influenced by his grandmother who owned a tavern. While he’d spend most of his weekends there, the music producer recalls the likes of Brenda Fassie, Luther Vandross, Whitney Huston and many more being his first exposure to music composition, melodies and beats.
5 While most of his childhood friends chose to entertain themselves with negative things around his neighbourhood, Da Kurk resorted to honing his musical skills, which helped him get his foot out of the place he was brought up and landing him on the international market sharing stages with big names like Black Coffee.
