it’s a potential nom for the EOY PPP for sure

😉

also, lest we forget, Tyla’s vocal on this is impeccable

playing it again right now, and wow. the keys being ever so slightly off-key is a great touch too

there’s also the ~actual~ amapiano remix: youtu.be/pavS1pKadPU?...

still her best song!

did you mean to write ‘bonus wreck’? 😇

have you heard “Ngishutheni” by Goon Flavour ft. Eemoh and said Master KG? it’s my 2025 favourite in this vein (and it’s high on my list of the year’s top tracks): youtu.be/756YdTT-WJ0?...

okay, I would label this log drum- enhanced bolobedu, it’s in the same ballpark as Master KG’s “Jerusalema” (and lo and behold, this is on Wanitwa Mos, which is his label, altho he doesn’t seem to be directly involved). but… I didn’t know this track! I love it! so thank you! (continues below)

last year’s VIBRATION UNIVERSELLE album is also very much worth your time btw

(one great thing she sometimes does is dip deep into her lower register, don’t think she does it on the new album, but see for example “Venez Bouger” from 2023: youtu.be/5y-G1iqLoF0?...)

this song would have been right at home in @peoples-pop-polls.bsky.social’s recent #BPHM8285 poll!

here’s the dub version:
youtu.be/kh6lI0aHm3Y?...

that’s very nice and considerate. I enjoyed watching that. thank you!

I wrote all that without having seen this addition 🤷🏻‍♂️

long story short, I’ve been maintaining a playlist where all this stuff is thrown together, but I’m very, very sure there are plenty more tracks around that would qualify given the diffuse environment
open.spotify.com/playlist/45D...
7️⃣/.

and apart from all of this, there have also been non-SA producers doing their own take (🇬🇭Juls and such), as well as 🇿🇦SA-helmed international 3-Step remixes (🇯🇵Utada Hikaru! 🇬🇧Sophie Ellis-Bextor! 🇬🇧Anushka!!) 6️⃣/>

never posted it, but special mention to this 🇰🇪Kenyan track from July - maybe I should check out the Ally Fresh album? youtu.be/QHdKMqbatcs?... 5️⃣/>

of the ones I posted about: there is 🇳🇬rapper Ayo Maff working directly with Jazzworx>wurld & Thukhuthela on his “Baddo’s Song” (Jun 25), plus of course most of the recent 🇳🇬Fireboy DML x Pheelz EP, where the whole vibe seems 3Step-coloured, most clearly on “Young Again”. 4️⃣/>

others have pointed to 🇳🇬Asake’s “Worldwide” (Aug 24), I earmarked 🇳🇬Wizkid’s “Après Minuit” (Nov 24) myself. 🇳🇬Odumudoblack’s “BTC” (Mar 25) might qualify too, as do two tracks on 🇳🇬Brown Joel’s recent album. some of these might feel further-fetched than others. 3️⃣/>

does a three-step rhythm pattern make something 3Step(-influenced) when the actual 3Step sound is absent? I mean, apart from that three-step beat “Big Daddy” doesn’t sound or feel like 3Step. there have been earlier examples of this, altho perhaps less emphatically so 2️⃣/>

hadn’t even noticed that aspect of “Big Daddy”! but that’s part of what makes this more complicated for me than tracing the amapiano influence back then, where you had that very distinctive log drum in the mix, making it immediately recognizable. but what makes s.thing 3Step or 3Step influenced? 1️⃣/>

Dua Lipa has a song about this