“Pluto” is filling dance floors and the airwaves, pushing Cape Town band Beatenberg into the spotlight, reports Sandiso Ngubane.
The gentle strumming of the guitar strings calls out gently, teasing you out of your chair and on to your feet. Then comes the dramatic thump and drumming so characteristic of South African house music … and then a smooth, crooning voice joins in on the melody. Pluto, arguably the biggest song in the country right now, is a unifying dance floor filler and It song of the radio waves by newcomers Beatenberg in collaboration with DJ Clock.
Pluto became the second most downloaded song from the local iTunes store four months after its release and has remained in the top 10 since. And it has received more radio airplay than any other song – local or international – for the past couple of weeks, according to Entertainment Monitoring Africa.
It is definitely a coup for DJ Clock and the three members of Cape Town-based Beatenberg: Ross Dorkin, Rob Brink and Matthew Field. But it almost didn’t happen.
Universal Music label executive Neil Sinclair first suggested the collaboration. “He’d read an interview we had done before where we mentioned that we love South African house music,” says Beatenberg drummer Brink. A couple of names came up, but the band settled on DJ Clock as they were already fans of his. The Durban-based DJ and record producer is probably most well-known for his 2008 mega-hit Umahambayedwa.
The relatively unknown Beatenberg acknowledge that the collaboration with DJ Clock has been a mutually beneficial career move, especially in terms of making music in a deeply segmented market where crossover hits – let alone artists – are quite rare.
“With Pluto, we got to have a number one song on Metro FM and Clock got to have a number one song on 5FM.”
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