DJ Lag and Novelist have released their collaboration ‘Bulldozer’, accompanied by a music video that shows the pair cruising around London and performing live.

The king of gqom and the Mercury Music Prize-nominated winning MC have teamed up for an energetic cut that feels ripe for the approaching summer months.

“The track came really fast,” South African DJ Lag said of the collaboration written in 2020. “I started the beats from scratch while Novelist was writing the lyrics. In like 30 minutes we were able to start recording and in an hour we were done. I would definitely really like to work with him again.”

Novelist, who won Best MC/Vocalist at the 2022 DJ Mag Best of British Awards, deploys pure braggadocio on the lively cut: “I’m a king and I’ve got the best flows / Every time I say a thing something explode / This is not a lyric, it’s a manifesto.”

The collaboration released via Black Major and Ice Drop comes as DJ Lag continues his Alpha-Zulu tour, which will see him visit every continent in the world in 2023 (see dates).

Alongside the shows he’ll be collaborating and recording with local artists to drop tracks on a monthly basis.

It follows Lag releasing his debut album ‘Meeting With The King’ in February last year, which was DJ Mag’s Album of the Month. The 15-track release channelled gqom, the Durban-originating house strain with which the DJ is synonymous, while also championing the world-dominating sound of amapiano. 

Revisit DJ Mag’s 2021 long-read interview with DJ Lag here and read about the most exciting gqom producers right now here.