Bongo Maffin

Bongo Maffin formed in 1996, starting as a project of South African deejay Oscar. Appleseed was born and raised in Zimbabwe but brings a distinct shona and reggae flavour to the group's music. Stoan began his musical career as a singer for the kwaito band Thebe while singer Thandwisa (Red), a Xhosa girl with roots in the Eastern Cape, joined in 1997 after working with them as a backup singer and studio musician. The group's expansive and spiritual take on the dance-oriented genre has been compared to the Fugees' broadening of American hip-hop. The trio's music is firmly rooted in the rhythms of house music, incorporating reggae, dancehall, rap and contemporary R&B but not without giving to their homeland, adding the sounds from South Africa's many homegrown genres: the bouncy beats of mbaqanga, gospel, the choral sound of iscathamiya (made famous by Ladysmith Black Mambazo) as well as kwaito (the name of which is derived from the Afrikaans slang word 'kwaai', meaning cool or mean).