5 Things You Should Know About Alie Keys. Amapiano (Zulu for “the pianos”) is a style of house music that emerged in South Africa in 2012. It is a hybrid of deep house, jazz and lounge music characterized by synths and wide percussive basslines. The genre has produced multiple artists who are now thriving and making a killing in music.
Here are 5 facts about Alie Keys:
1 Almont “Alie Keys” Mthombeni was born on 10 March 1990 in the suburb of Cowdray Park in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.
2 Zimbabwean beatmaker Alie Keys has produced some of the biggest songs for rapper Cassper Nyovest over the years.
3 He is also one of the creative brains behind Nyovest’s Fill Up events which have broken records in the South African music industry through shows like Fill Up The Dome, Fill Up Orlando Stadium and Fill Up FNB Stadium. The two’s relationship, spanning almost a decade now, is no longer just in the studio, but they now see each other as brothers.
4 Keyboard player Almonte “Alie Keys’ Mthombeni who has risen from being the rapper’s band member to one of Cassper Nyovest’s trusted lieutenants. He is credited as a producer in some tracks from Nyovest’s Thuto and is also featured as a background vocalist in some of the songs. “We met while I was playing for Red Riots at Rosebank in 2012 and he asked for my number. At the time he was not this popular, so I didn’t know who he was only to find out when people started screaming the moment he stepped outside. He didn’t call me for three years but after the release of Doc Shebeleza he did.”
5 He was raised in a musical family. “I come from a family where everyone can sing. My father plays the guitar and my mother can sing. When we went to my rural place in Nkayi, we would take a battery with us, and I would play the keyboard there as we sing. We would sing together with my grandparents, even in the field.”
