Black Coffee played a sold-out show at Madison Square Garden in October, the biggest of his career – but like the rest of this year, it’s a bit of a blur. “You look back the following day and think ‘What just happened?’,” he says. The DJ/Producer, whose real name is Nkosinathi Innocent Maphumlo, is often credited for bringing South African dance music to the world; over the last 20 years, he’s released nine studio albums, collaborated with the likes of Pharrell Williams and Alicia Keys, and won a Grammy.
Maphumlo sees the dissemination of South African dance music through his work as his “strength”. “There’s so much of this music,” he emphasises. “My job as a DJ is to look for it, curate it, and present it to the world in a way that is tasteful.” His skill is in harnessing the crowd; knowing which tracks to play and when, to evoke a certain mood from his audience. “[I think to myself], I played this last night in Paris, is it going to work in Monaco?”
Growing up in South Africa, serendipity brought music into his life. “When I got into the school, there were no music classes,” he explains. “They randomly introduced a new teacher. We were the first [kids] in the area to learn music.” Over the years, Black Coffee became engrossed in the subject: “There were choirs, small Boyz II Men-type groups – anything to do with music, I was always there.”
At age 14, he started to DJ; a practice he’d continue into university, where he studied the unusual combination of jazz and production. “I was the only student that would bring turntables to school. It was very uncultured to the other students because jazz is so well respected. It’s like a cult,” he says.
Rebelling against convention is Black Coffee’s preferred method of learning. In the early days of his career, he quickly became weary of playing the same vinyls as other DJs – so he switched up his sets. “I started doing my own edits of songs that I love that weren’t even dance music,” he explains. “Just records where I liked the vocals. That’s how I learned more about production; it was extremely unconventional, I was breaking all the rules.”
In 2003, he secured a spot at the Red Bull Music Academy in Cape Town, connecting him with legends of the South African music scene like trumpeter Hugh Masekela. Since then, he’s released tracks with the likes of Usher and David Guetta, and launched his own record label, Soulistic Music.
The uniqueness of his is also reflected in the way he dresses. Regularly spotted in pieces from Off-White and Louis Vuitton, he’s nailed a signature style as refined as his setlists. “I have an individual taste, which I’m not shy about,” he says. “I’m the guy that will be in the room and if you know, you know.”
For his show at Madison Square Garden, Maphumlo enlisted fashion designer Mike Amiri to create a custom outfit. Black Coffee’s favourite artist, Wonderbuhle, painted the matriarchs who raised him – an image that Amiri embroidered onto his jacket. Black Coffee wanted the significance to be understood: “I explained to him that everything [my family] has is because of these three women. It would be such an iconic [opportunity] for me to bring them to Madison Square Garden as well.”
He’s still baffled that he managed to pull off a show of that scale. But it shouldn’t surprise; few DJs are as focused on perfecting their live shows. In fact, Maphumlo has decided against making another album. He has a history of challenging convention, having launched the GongBox app to help emerging African musicians enter an industry that’s exceedingly difficult to access. “Before, all artists did was make an album and then wait, then make an album and then wait,” he explains. “There’s so much pressure to do that because you have to figure out what you want to say with each album.”
Instead, he wants to work on projects that he can take on tour. He’s got his mind set on a full orchestral EP with Hans Zimmer. “I don’t know if it’s something he’ll be down for, but it’s where I want to go,” he says.
