DBN Gogo: connecting the dots

Saturday evening, mid-March 2020. Mandisa Radebe steps into the DJ booth at Soweto’s Moja Café for a mix that will make an impact far beyond Gauteng. The first half is pure South African old school — beloved house cuts from the early ’00s through ’10s — followed by a final hour of amapiano that will command the crowd into chorus. From Phonique’s ‘You, That I’m With’, to Raw Artistic Soul’s remix of the timeless ‘Summer Breeze’, Culoe De Song’s pensive ‘Webaba’, and Dennis Ferrer’s classic take on Fish Go Deep’s ‘The Cure & The Cause’, the crowd is on its feet. The DJ oozes a cool, calm energy. She seems to know every lyric, dance move and person in the room. Thirty minutes in she teases Charles Webster’s ‘La Mezcla’ club mix, pumping the bass on every beat, way beyond 12 o’clock — and when the bassline drops, the dancefloor roars with approval. She cracks a small smile.

Radebe uploaded the set weeks later, introducing DBN Gogo to the world and the world to amapiano. In the five years since, she’s played every possible continent, released scores of music, and pushed amapiano in the unlikeliest of places. “I play in a lot of spaces where a lot of ’piano DJs have never played,” she tells DJ Mag on a video call from her home in Johannesburg. “So it’s always about not being too hard on myself, not being too hard on the crowd, and telling the story from my own perspective.” From Moja Café to Afro Nation to Tomorrowland, she’s won fans among the well-initiated and the newly curious, opening for dance music heavyweights like Keinemusik, and sharing billings with fellow SA acts such as DESIREE.

Back home, she’s a lighthouse: a reassuring guide for new waves of talent, a friendly face willing to show others the lay of the land. It’s something we note in our many interactions from afar. Whether over video or phone calls, voice notes or messages, Radebe is a natural storyteller, willing to explain — in detail — her vision for the scene, her peers. And as she talks about ’piano’s future, its scope, its mystery, we can’t help nodding in agreement. “I think she always focused on being really great technically, telling a good story and taking you on a journey, which is what the best DJs do,” UK-based amapiano artist Charisse Chikwiri, AKA Charisse C, replies when we ask about Radebe’s success. “She breaks new music and everybody has always known and trusted her for that. She’s respected by the biggest names, they all respect her.”