Teno Afrika, real name Lutendo Raduvha, is a 23-year-old producer based in South Africa, where he spent his childhood moving around the country’s Gauteng province. Through his teenage years, he discovered amapiano, a style of music that combines the South African predilection for deep house alongside a mélange of endemic influences like kwaito, jazz, gqom, and diBicardi, a percussion-heavy electronic music genre that’s popular in the city of Pretoria and its surrounding townships. As the sound spread through WhatsApp and sharing platforms like datafilehost, amapiano steadily evolved from an underground sound to a nationwide, mainstream staple.

Inspired, Raduvha quickly learned the ropes, using a cracked version of FL Studio, and he began sharing his deftly minimal sketches with his friends and through YouTube. Then, in 2020 he signed Amapiano Selections, a collection of his early tracks, to Awesome Tapes from Africa. It turned out to be the Los Angeles label’s most popular digital release of the year and the first run of a thousand LPs sold out almost immediately. With the release, Raduvha gave listeners outside the movement’s online release economy an insight into the genre.

For his second album, Where You Are, Raduvha introduces listeners to other figures within the amapiano community, and brings more vocalists into the sonic picture, unlocking an “emotive and timbral escalation,” we’re told, to his catalog of work. Singers Leyla and KayCee feature on the title-track and “Fall In Love,” respectively, while Diego Don joins for two driving, pad-propelled works. Raduvha has decided to mark the release with an XLR8R podcast, which he recorded last month in his home in Soweto, filling it with new productions and some of his favorite amapiano songs from the likes of Vigro Deep and Vilosoul. Press play for two hours of uplifting amapiano vibes from one of the genre’s key figures.

01. What have you been up to recently?
I’ve been working on new music with other new upcoming artists.

02. How was your 2021?
2021 was great because I got to perform on my first international gig in Japan.

03. What have you been listening to recently?
Some tech amapiano, a style which I’ve been working on recently.

04. Talk me through the new album: what can we expect?
I added some vocals on the new album, unlike the first album which had instrumental songs only. And my style has matured a little bit in this new album.

05. Where and when did you record this mix?
I recorded it in my home in Soweto on January 20.

06. How did you select the tracks that you’ve included?
It’s a compilation of my new productions and some of my favorite songs.

07. What can the listener expect?
Good music only.

08. How does it compare to what we might hear you play live?
When I play live, the music I play depends on the reaction of the crowd.

09. What’s on your horizon for 2022?
Hopefully, I drop a tech amapiano album.

XLR8R has now joined Mixcloud Select, meaning that to hear the podcast offline you will need to subscribe to our Select channel to listen offline, or subscribe to XLR8R+ to download the file. The move to Mixcloud Select will ensure that all the producers with music featured in our mixes get paid. You can read more about it here.

Full XLR8R+ Members can download the podcast below. If you’re not an XLR8R+ member, you can read more about it and subscribe here.

Tracklisting

01. Amaarae & Kali Uchis “Sad Girls Love Money” feat. Moliy (Vigro Deep’s Revisit) (A Golden Child Entertainment)
02. Vigro Deep “Can You Feel My Heart” (Bring Me The Horizon)(Kalawa Jazmee)
03. Vigro Deep “Fire & Ice” feat. Yashna & Neo Ndawo (Kalawa Jazmee)
04. Vigro Deep “Been Waiting” (Kalawa Jazmee)
05. Teno Afrika “Bornwise” feat. Black SA (Unreleased)
06. Entity MusiQ “Yahweh” (Unreleased)
07. Teno Afrika “Extension 45” (Unreleased)
08. Teno Afrika “Unknown” (Unreleased)
09. Vilosoul “Groovists” (Mbalambala MusiQue)
10. Vilosoul “Woza” (Mbalambala MusiQue)
11. Robin S “Show Me Love” (Teno Afrika revisit) (Unreleased)
12. Teno Afrika “Al Fateha” (Yano’s Revisit)(Unreleased)