Distruction Boyz prove why Gqom music is the future

DURBAN-BASED dance duo Distruction Boyz nearly shut down the Internet on Friday with the release of their highly-anticipated debut album Gqom is The Future‚ something that was all part of their master plan.

After giving people a reason to burn out dancefloors with their production on last year’s December anthem Wololo, the Distruction Boyz debut album has already won the hearts of many, launching the December fever.

“We were blown away with the response to the album, but it was really what we expected. It all went according to plan‚” the group’s Thobane ‘Que’ Mgobhozi said.

Gqom is The Future sees collaborative effort from some of the biggest musicians in the game, DJ Tira, Benny Maverick and even Babes Wodumo, their former label mate. Tracks to look out for include Omunye, Shut up and groove and Madness.

Mgobhozi (21) and Zipho ‘Gold’ Mthembu (20), are gqom DJs and producers from Kwa-Mashu who set the ambitious goal to become the first act to reach gold certification for a Gqom album. The youngsters have dictated Durban sound in the past year with their productions and have successfully made the Gqom music genre their own. Gqom is a genre of dance music popular in Durban‚ only made mainstream recently.

“We’ve only just released the physical copies of the album so it’s a little too early to tell how far we are from reaching gold, but we’ve no doubt that we’re going to go gold and even platinum. People love our music and our digital sales have been amazing. We are number one across the country‚” Que said.

Distruction Boys were instrumental in taking the genre out of the Durban townships to become the most exciting sound in the country‚ beating out hiphop‚ afro-dancehall and reggae at the recent Red Bull Culture Clash. But it was not easy for the duo who had to convince artists‚ music bosses and even their parents to take a chance on them.

“My parents weren’t too happy about me wanting to do music because they’re academics, but I did what they wanted from me and finished school and now they don’t mind what I do. It’s not so bad now but we also used to get a lot of questions when we started out‚ like: ‘who are these guys and what are they doing?’ and ‘what is gqom?’ It was only after we started making music for other artists that things got easier‚” he said.

The group was discovered by Big Nuz’s Mampintsha who recruited them to work on Wololo, a track he was producing for Babes Wodumo.

“We were releasing music and he heard our songs. He gave us a call one random day and was like: ‘hey guys‚ this is Mampintsha. Please come through to the studio and work on something’. That is how we worked on Wololo.”

He said the track‚ which has become one of the most popular songs ever recorded in Mzansi‚ took just an hour to put together.

“In our arsenal‚ we have so many beats so it wasn’t too difficult to put a beat over the lyrics. After an hour it was done. We all knew that it would be a big song, but no one was expecting it to be that massive‚” he added. – TimesLive