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African ChillZone IV

Fifty-seven tracks and the most ambitious volume in the series — a set that moves between Lagos, Johannesburg and Kingston without ever changing temperature.

African ChillZone IV

The fourth volume is the one where the series stops being a mood playlist and becomes a survey. Fifty-seven tracks is a lot of music, and the sequencing is doing something specific with it: rather than grouping by country or genre, it moves by feel, so that Nigerian afrobeats, South African amapiano and Jamaican dancehall sit side by side as though they were always part of the same conversation.

Which, increasingly, they are. The great story of the past decade in this music is not any one scene's rise but the traffic between them — producers in Lagos working with Johannesburg vocalists, Jamaican artists cutting over amapiano logs, London acting as the switchboard.

What to listen for

Master KG's "Jerusalema" in the Burna Boy remix is the global moment — a South African gospel-house record with Nomcebo Zikode on the vocal that became, improbably, one of the most-danced songs on earth.

Kabza De Small's "Sponono", with Wizkid, Burna Boy and Cassper Nyovest, is the collaboration that best demonstrates the traffic described above: amapiano production, Nigerian and South African voices, no obvious centre.

Sun-El Musician and Msaki's "Ubomi Abumanga" is the most beautiful thing here, and worth the price of admission alone.

Wizkid's "Smile" with H.E.R. and Khalid's "Know Your Worth" with Davido and Tems are the crossover records, and both are better than crossover records usually are.

Tems appears twice, including on DRB Lasgidi's "Trouble", which is early enough to be interesting.

Samthing Soweto and Sha Sha's "Akulaleki" is the amapiano standard, Tiwa Savage's "Dangerous Love" and "Attention" are the pop peaks, and Adekunle Gold's "Something Different" is the songwriter's choice.

Original Koffee's "Rapture" is the Jamaican entry that ties the whole set together.

Go deeper

Sun-El Musician and Msaki both have catalogues worth working through properly. Kabza De Small and DJ Maphorisa as the Scorpion Kings are the amapiano entry point.

Play this volume against the third in the series and the shift is audible: III still sounds like a collection of scenes, IV sounds like one.

How to use it: fifty-seven tracks is a commitment, and the set is built to be left running rather than navigated. The sequencing does the work of a DJ — nothing jars, the temperature never breaks, and the transitions between countries pass without announcement. Start it and leave it alone.

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