Okmalumkoolkat is as obsessed with pushing the city’s dance styles as he is in bringing its gqom life to the world, reports Kwanele Sosibo.
On November 23, Okmalumkoolkat DJs at Fiction Club in Long Street, as DJ Zharp Zharp at the Birthday Bonanza Extravanganza (a celebration of DJs Sibot and Toyota’s birthdays). Other DJs include Sibot, Toyota, Fresh White Reeboks (2Bop) and Leonardo Dekappitvlou (Jack Parow).
By most accounts, Durban-raised Okmalumkoolkat (Smiso Zwane) stole Danny Brown’s thunder when he took to the stage at last week’s Unite Joburg event at Walter Sisulu Square in Kliptown, Soweto.
Appearing just minutes before the gap-toothed Detroit rapper, Okmalumkoolkat finished off his verse on Gusheshe, his hit with Cassper Nyovest, before being joined on stage by dancer and graphic artist Manthe Ribane.
Johannesburg resident Okmalum-koolkat is a vocalist, dancer, clothing designer, DJ and tastemaker who stands at the nexus of underground culture and its emergence in the mainstream.
Many people first became aware of his musical talents with the release of Dirty Paraffin’s rough-hewn mixtape Dirty Paraffin’s Greatest Hits Volume 1. Doktor Spizee, another Durban export, manned the beats, which were raw, infectious samples from the likes of Michael Jackson, Chicco and Kraftwerk.
Suffice to say, pushing gqom (the scabrous underground version of Durban kwaito music) to the world is one of Okmalumkoolkat’s current preoccupations. “I’ve got everyone interested in gqom,” he says nonchalantly. “In Cape Town, I’ve been giving it to all my electro friends, like Jumping Back Slash. He’s coming out with an EP now where he is calling the tracks “gqom romance”.
“Every time I’m in Cape Town, [Okmalumkoolkat DJs as DJ Zharp Zharp] I play gqom and not much else. I’m sending it out to my friends in London as well.”
Okmalumkoolkat recently did a mix for Big City Nights Radio, which is produced by Manny Zambrano, at the invitation of his friend Okzharp.
“Whatever is happening in Durban, I try to push. But the one thing about igqom is that it’s no longer just coming out of Durban. Even guys in Mpumalanga are doing it, people who are not interested in deep house.”
Okmalumkoolkat recently collaborated with London-based LV on the album Sebenza, will work with Cid Rim and The Clonious in a collaboration titled Holy Oxygen.
Full story by Kwanele Sosibo: Mail & Guardian.
