London-based Rapper BERWYN Opens Up About His Experience Working On An Amapiano Project. BERWYN was born in Trinidad and moved to Romford, east London at the age of nine. His father was a bus driver and his mother a youth worker. According to BERWYN, his father has also worked as a DJ, and his family were “always musical”. BERWYN attended the Royal Liberty School, where he was inspired by his music teacher who would take him to a folk club.
His first time hearing an amapiano song “was in the studio with Jorja and she was playing me All of This, like a year before the release. It was beautiful, sounded like a tribal ballad. I loved the shaker underneath. But when the log drums come in? Oh my goodness … I was absolutely obsessed.”
Being a rapper doing the kind of music he does, BERWYN said jumping into amapiano was quite an experience. “It’s interesting. It’s quite a ritual-based genre. I like the ritual and the idea of worship being practised for a genre, which is what I do. Amapiano is so tribal. Like when you pull some of those instruments away you could be at the dawn of mankind, in the middle of some plane and you’re watching tribal men dance. You know them ones there? You’re watching the start of music,” he told The Face publication.
His point of view on amapiano as a genre taking over the world, the rapper said: “I think this is a good time for roots music in general. Loads of Black-oriented international genres like dancehall and South African house are having this huge roots resurgence – in the same way reggae did in the 60s. I think these things are cyclical. As a modern listener, you’ll know ‘oh everyone’s using these keys cos of amapiano’, but it’s not really amapiano anymore. It’s like a complete feedback loop, where it goes and comes to one place; it’s all magnetically attached to this one place.”
