Kwaito

Kwaito is a South African dance music that emerged in Soweto and Johannesburg in the early 1990s, slowing house and Chicago house templates to a mid-tempo groove and rebuilding them with local materials. Producers looped chunky basslines, piano riffs and township samples under vocals that mix rapping, chanting and singing in Zulu, Sotho and tsotsitaal street slang. Acts such as *Arthur Mafokate*, *Mandoza* and *TKZee* made the style the dominant sound of post-apartheid township youth culture, favouring call-and-response hooks, repetitive arrangements and an emphasis on dance over lyrical complexity.