Groove City 5

The Kwaito sound of 90s South Africa was a powerful expression of a nation emerging from the throes of Apartheid oppression and expressing a modernist identity for itself. It took the regularity and simplicity of the rawest house music, then unceremoniously pulled it apart and rebuilt it as a thoroughly new vernacular. Slowed right down, rapped and sung in local languages, it was rough, rowdy and unmistakable for anything else. Operating parallel to a scene of more straightforward house, it was hugely popular and helped lay the ground for the higher-gloss and eventually world-conquering sounds that would follow in the 21st century. This 1997 compilation, a classic of tapes sold by taxi drives across the country, captures that perfectly. It’s aggressive and celebratory in equal measure and still hits hard.