DBN Gogo

Mandisa Radebe, a South African artist who moved from the DJ booth into recording, concentrates on amapiano’s signature moody, laid-back rhythms and its sparse, minimalist production aesthetic. The style, a local offshoot of deep house that surfaced in the mid-2010s, drew worldwide notice early in the following decade, and under the DBN Gogo alias Radebe stands among its foremost champions.

She entered the world in Durban on the country’s eastern seaboard yet divided her formative years between Paris, France, and Pretoria, the administrative capital. Her father Jeff Radebe held a government ministerial post, while stepmother Bridgette Radebe ranked among the first black African women to own a mine. School choirs, piano lessons, and recorder practice filled Radebe’s early schedule. During the family’s time in Paris, touring South African figures such as Miriam Makeba often visited, and once back in Pretoria she steeped herself in rekere, bacardi, broken beat, and kwaito—the very sounds that later fed into amapiano. Studying law at the University of Pretoria convinced her she could surpass the guest DJs who regularly played on campus. Throughout 2017, friend DJ Venom gave her access to Stones in Melville for practice sessions in the empty hours before opening. She adopted the DBN Gogo name, and by the close of 2019 DJ work supplied her chief income. Appearances at Homecoming Africa, Ultra, Oppikoppi, and Afropunk paved the way for studio sessions with newly acquainted peers.

An August 2020 collaborative EP with Dinho titled Thokoza Café let her outline her sonic direction. The inventive single “Khuza Gogo,” released in March 2021 with Blaqnick and MasterBlaq, became her breakthrough solo release and achieved platinum status just over a year later. July brought another substantial hit, “Possible” featuring Dinho and Musa Keys, plus the Break Through EP recorded with Unlimited Soul. Growing international interest in amapiano prompted a UK club tour with sold-out audiences later that year, and January introduced “Dakiwe,” which quickly turned into a major social-media phenomenon.

For DBN Gogo, 2022 unfolded as one of her most demanding periods. February saw the arrival of “Bambelela,” the inaugural single on Zikode Records, the label she founded with Universal Music backing. She also curated a nine-day Boiler Room x Ballantine’s event in Johannesburg that month, centering on diversity and inclusivity. March delivered the funk-, jazz-, and dub-inflected “Bells,” issued with TNK Musiq and DJ Stopper, which became her next major success ahead of a high-profile Coachella slot in California. Clout Africa then named her DJ of the year. Further singles arrived alongside Stixx, Yumbs, and Mellow & Sleazy, followed in November by her debut solo album Whats Real, an extended and wide-ranging set. That same month “Love & Loyalty (Believe)” appeared on the soundtrack to Marvel’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. After the brooding January 2023 Zikode single “Rough Dance,” DBN Gogo spent the opening months of the year supplying production for emerging artists on labels such as Rethabile Setwaba, Visionary Agency, and Ndlovukazi Entertainment.