If gqom has a CEO, it's probably DJ Lag. The South African artist has found enormous success since teaching himself to produce and DJ as a teenager in Durban, to the point that he famously worked with Beyoncé on the Lion King soundtrack. His style of gqom, a heaving, powerful type of club music, has become sleek and often catchy, growing from classic tracks like "Ice Drop" into thrilling hybrids like "Lucifer," his collaboration with amapiano artist Lady Du.

Like so much dance music around the world at this point, DJ Lag's newest productions are informed by the red-hot, ultra-suave sound of amapiano, another South African-born genre. His long-awaited debut album, Meeting With The King, features plenty of flirtations with amapiano and house styles, working with some of South Africa's most talented artists and coming up with a sound he's christened Gqom 2.0. You can hear DJ Lag's expansive, exciting vision in his RA Podcast, an hour of cutting-edge South African dance music that lays out some of the sounds (and artists) you'll be hearing all year, from amapiano to Afrotech and Afro house and many intriguing things in between.

Read more including an interview with DJ Lag: https://ra.co/podcast/820