He started off playing and producing hip hop music in 2008.
From being his rapper cousin’s DJ, Lwazi Gala found himself producing beats for Msawawa around 2010.
About a year later, he heard a gqom song by Naked Boys and it was love at first hearing.
Ever since then, he has been inseparable from the music genre. Before he knew it, he was dubbed King of Ggqom.
Almost 15 years later, DJ Lag says the industry has taught him the importance of respect, determination and collaboration.
Even when amapiano continues to make the biggest international moves, DJ Lag keeps believing in the genre’s power so much so that he dared to make a gqom song laced with amapiano.
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Way before it was even officially released two weeks ago, Hade boss was already making topping trends on TikTok.
“Gqom is evolving at the moment. Even this new sound that I hopped onto with this song has elements of amapiano. I always wished to fuse amapiano with gqom. There are even two songs from my previous album that have the same style of sound. I think it’s Hade boss that’s making people notice the style now.”
Initially, DJ Lag wanted to settle the battle between the two but now he’s ready to capitalise on the unexplored territory.
Speaking about how the song making waves came about, the 28-year-old tells Drum that he was approached by Mr Nation Thingz in his DMs last year.
“He asked to do a song with me. I sent him the beat and we put it together, but I never paid much attention to it. I kept it unreleased for some time but when Mr Nation Thingz started performing it and he even created a dance challenge then I only noticed in December that this could potentially be a big song. I had no choice but to release it last month.”
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Seeing how good it performed on the charts and with its reach, the producer hailing from Durban was shocked to see a song making as much waves in January when people are going out less often.
In the next few months, he will be releasing another album around and an EP later on towards the end of the year that will continue to bring amapiano and gqom fans together.
Throughout his career, his top highlight remains when Will Smith plagiarised his Ice Drop song and people were up in arms in support of him until the American actor finally apologised.
“I had never seen anything like that. I knew that people know me, but I never imagined that I’d witness them fight for me like that.”
