Number One Records

Mbaqanga is a South African township dance music that crystallized in the early 1960s, blending marabi piano-jazz harmonies, kwela’s lilting rhythms, and traditional Zulu/Sotho vocal styles with electric guitars, bass, saxophones, and drum kit. Characterized by a driving 4/4 shuffle, cyclical bass ostinati, choppy off‑beat rhythm guitar, tight horn riffs, and vibrant call-and-response vocals, it is both earthy and urbane—music made for public dances, shebeens, and radio alike. The term “mbaqanga” (a Zulu word for a steamed maize bread) came to signify a homegrown, filling, and proudly local sound that nonetheless drew on global jazz and R&B currents. A signature substyle, mgqashiyo, features a gravel-voiced male lead (“the groaner”) backed by a bright female chorus and a virtuoso electric band, epitomizing the music’s propulsive, joyful energy.