Local Goes International

Here at Soul Toniq, we really believe in the strength of the local music scene and from time to time we will cover a lot of up and coming local artists, producers and vocalists who are doing it big locally and abroad with a lot of bias. This review of 2011 focuses squarely on that and we’ll be doing an international review once we get down to talk about it coz there’s just so much good music it would be impossible to cover it all.

Here goes nothing….




One of our favourite tracks from 2011 was “Walk a mile – Cuebur ft. Nathan X (Ultra tone in too deep). Shout out to the Lars Behrenroth and the Deeper Shades of House crew for that one.

Another local production crew, Lemon and Herb from Pretoria, graced our airwaves with their hit track “Velani ft. Moonchild”.

60Hertz and Ralf Gum did it big with the hit track “Capricorn”. GOGO Music keeps churning out the classics with each passing day it seems. With the likes of Black Coffee, Bucie, DJ Christos and Raw Artistic Soul signed to their Label, we wouldn’t expect anything less than the best. 60Hertz find themselves in really good company we think and expect more from them.

Bah Samba and Monique Bingham outdid themselves with the track ‘Do It” from the EP “Shake the Dog”. However, it’s not until another local DJ got his hands on the track that the song really came to life. QB’s Hot Do It remix set the airwaves alight and it’s been one of my favourites since it came out as a pre-release on Traxsource.

We have to give it up for our local vocalists, we love Aretha M who did vocals for us, and so we just had to include the really deep, really soulful track Sunrise by Warm Days with Khensy on the vocals. QB was on the remix, correctly named QB’s Mafikeng Vocal Dub. If you haven’t heard this one, hit it up on the link and be mesmerized by the smooth vocals.

Black Motion’s “Talking to the Drum” got us reminiscing back on the days of the Africanism Series. If you were a house music lover back then, Talking to the Drum is a return to the finest virtues of beat banging house music. It’s quality from start to finish and gets our vote as one of the best locally produced albums of 2011.

A review of the local house music scene would be incomplete (and in our opinion, totally irrelevant) without mentioning the entire Do It nOw Recordings crew. Hit tracks like I’m So Hung up on you and Reach produced by Nastee Nev, Sala with a remix by Soulagenda, Sweet Kisses ft. Eliki and Rude Disco were all hit tracks. Not forgetting Kafele Bandele who is one of their signed international artists, Do It nOw has been doing really well for themselves.

We would be wrong to claim this as a complete list, so if you have any additions you’d like to make, hit us with a few suggestions in the comments box below and who knows.

The Soul Toniq crew