Yaadt doesn’t need an invitation. It talks to everything around you. In the new episode of the Sonic Worlding column, our writer enters a poetic dialogue with the new music style born in Cape Town that exceeds the borders of the sounds it’s composed of.
«Is it not this, O earth, which you desire:
To arise unseen within us? Is it not
Your dream, for once to be invisible?»
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies
It’s been about an hour since I got here; the smell of cigarettes and alcohol is becoming strong in the house. Most of the people are sitting outside there with a bottle of Red Heart being passed around. I go outside; the meat goes on the braai or barbecue; the sizzle of it synchronizes to the pounding from the speaker.
I didn’t think I’d be here today, but neither did the other people here; that’s how it goes. There are no prerequisites to conjure yaadt, it doesn’t need an invitation. Spontaneous and a bottle is how it goes. The sun is setting; it’s time to surrender to the warm summer night of Cape Town.
The yaadt itself is special because it imposes itself onto you, its force so strong it’s even its own genre of music; the type of music which exists in the aural subspace between the holy and crude, the platonic and intimate. You will discover your will when the beat takes over in the yaadt. It’s a place you come to when you want a new lease on life; we don’t mind if you bring your inhibitions along, they make us comfortable. We’ll give you a krat or paint bucket to sit on because there’s enough space. I know that humans are special, the yaadt is something that appears in a matter of seconds. And when life’s complexity feels too much, come to the yaadt. The yaadt holds all ambivalence.
«the bluetooth device is ready to pair»
a pause:
«the bluetooth device is connected-uh successfully»
A girl I just met shows me the WhatsApp group where the yaadt DJs send their mixes to. A few years back you just had to know someone to find the yaadt music or you kept a USB on hand in case a taxi gaatjie (minibus door operator) or a friend was going to say they could give you the mix.
I find myself in the center of the yaadt now after allowing myself to imbibe in DJ Neeno’s version of «Bye-Bye» and «That Boy is Mine» and a few Hunters Dry cider. «Net Liggies» comes on; a song that I haven’t heard since 2015. That’s the thing about this music, it feels just like how it did back then, but I don’t feel like a teenager anymore. When I was younger, I danced to yaadt because it was cheerful. But, now that I’m older, I understand the feeling and fluidity of yaadt, that it is a place and a genre, but neither at the same time. And that when yaadt is played it signifies a type of camaraderie unexplainable.
The yaadt feels unearthly,
it’s the familiar music
remixed in wispy beats,
it’s the same place where our
ancestors met.
in an arid place, drinking
out of mini tumblers to make the drink stretch;
where fellowshipping in vulnerability
is currency for aporie
whether street-light
or disco-light
yaadt will continue to find solace
yaadt will continue to adorn
people with its history,
it’s melancholy
in homes which move as
easily as the wiping of a cloth
the day after
Yaadt is confrontational and when you entertain it, you see how it talks to everything around you; to the people around you that you’re going to know, uncut grass and ceased renovations and grease stains, people making out and people dancing; a random uncle bug-drifting. You stand in awe. The yaadt brings the sensuality of jazz with the vigor of house and the resilience of gqom and lays it gently over a song that you’ve already known and transforms it into a song where you can be soft without having to let go of your despair. We don’t allow one thing: shame. The bass boost is too good to feel shame.
