South African Artists Are Now Using Music to Address Social Ills

Serious Messages

On any given Saturday night in Johannesburg, the trendy place to be is Braamfontein, a gentrifying, hipster-friendly neighborhood downtown, where pulsing dance beats of house music take over the clubs. It’s something of a stunner to hear a DJ segue to “Ghetto” by The Muffinz, a Johannesburg-based five-man band whose 2012 debut, “Have You Heard,” was played on conventional instruments, not built in the studio from electronic beats and samples.

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