Since the mid-90s, South African House, Kwaito, Gqom, Cape Hop and Amapiano has
swept the club dancefloors from Gauteng to Berlin. But the 80s starting-point for all of the
above Mzansi party and dance music was ‘Bubblegum’: lean, stripped multi-lingual synthboogie and disco inspired as much by Michael Jackson and Sugarhill as by Township Roots,
the name borrowed from the USA 60s trend for sweet, teen-aimed ditties, but then ironically
‘owned’ by a generation of South Africans angry at injustice and hungry for the future.