Josiah De Disciple At the Forefront of Healing Music With His Tribalistic Sound
Since amapiano took over as one of the country’s leading genres, the sound has established itself as one that enables its artists to not only own their music, but also their collective cultural identities. In between swaying and gyrating to the rhythms of the signature attribute of the log drum to getting together and rejoicing and mourning in one spirit, amapiano has become the young black person’s way of embracing their African roots.
At the heart of this movement has been amapiano star Josiah De Disciple, who has worked with the likes of Mr JazziQ, Murumba Pitch, and Nobuhle, among others. Coming from a background where he was taught how to mix and put songs together, the former member of amapiano duo JazziDisciples is due to release his next album Satori this coming April.
He spoke about the follow-up project to 2023’s Sounds of Gomora Vol. 2: The Healer’s Avenue.
“When it came to making Satori, I already had a plan in mind about the direction I wanted to take. So, all I had to do was find the proper vocalists to work with and structure a music camp where I could start working with people in order to get to the end goal. Having the camp was extremely helpful because I got to work with people like Leandra and Toshi, who fit perfectly with the styles I wanted to implement on the album. It was only a matter of finding the right people who were going to help me accomplish what I wanted with the music,” Josiah said.
Josiah De Disciple | SUPPLIED
There’s a Zulu adage that goes: Indlela ibuzwa kwabaphambili, meaning that those who come from behind should consult their forerunners on previously chartered trails. And behind every versed musician are stacks of records, CDs, and cassettes from some of the greats of their respective genres. Josiah De Disciple shared who his inspirations have been.
“The one guy who inspired me the most was Culoe De Song. He’s one guy that did his own thing back in the day, and he was so good at it. What inspired me the most was that he started his journey at a very young age. He changed my way of looking at producing and DJing because those were things I thought you could only do after college or when you started working. You know, like when you’re an adult. That’s what I used to think. Even when you used to go to places in my time, it would always be elderly people playing sets, and so Culoe changed that mindset for me,” he said.
Each musician has their own trademark concoction of sounds they use to watermark their music, and for Josiah, his trinity has always been the guitar, drums, and basslines, which he admitted, with hearty laughter, that they stoked a fire within him when used in tandem with log drums. Known for incorporating tribalistic undertones to his music, Josiah De Disciple shared that his artistic divergence not only helped him standout from his ground-shaking contemporaries but also made him easily identifiable and unique in an otherwise over-saturated environment of DJs.
“The one thing I consistently do with my sound is to take that tribal and spiritual sound everywhere I go. Even for my album, Satori, it’s something I brought onto the album. I have songs with Toshi, Nobuhle, Mazet, and Maline Aura; and those are the more tribal-leaning songs in the project. For some odd reason, I have always had that luck when it comes to my sound in such a way that when people listen to my music, they know right away that I had a hand in it. Being the only one who does the tribal-leaning style has made my music special because whenever I drop something, it stands alone and stays in its own lane. Establishing myself as the spiritual guy when I entered the game really helped me,” he said.
Listen to “Khetheyakho” from Satori:
Josiah took it back to the old days, before COVID, and cited “Final Touch” from the Disciples of Piano album with Mr JazziQ as his darling among many songs he struggled to pick a favourite from.
“One song that I will always cherish comes from my JazziDisciples days. The song “Final Touch” really shaped and changed the game in amapiano. The album itself was game-changing but the song had this timeless feel to it. If you were to listen to it today, it would feel as though it dropped yesterday,” he said.
True to his identity as a tribal sound-loving muso, Josiah revealed that outside piano, the genre he was interested in experimenting on was afrosoul.
“I have a lot of genres I’d like to try out in the future, but afropop and afrosoul are the types of style I’d like to do something with sometime later. And I feel like it’s a style that can work now more than ever because we have a wide range of vocalists, even in the piano scene, who I know wouldn’t mind having a go at the sound,” he said.
Listen to “Final Touch”: