If you had asked me in early 2020 why Amapiano would soon become the heartbeat, not only of South Africa but of the world, I couldn’t have given you a streetwise academic answer.

But looking back now, through the smoke of the pandemic, economic downturns, global lockdowns, and even festive-season bottle caps, what becomes clear is this: we didn’t just make a genre, we made a refuge.

I want to give this cultural story its own term: “Econo-Groove.”

Not just music tied to markets or monetisation, but music that emerges from emotional economic pressure, a soundtrack born not despite hardship, but because of it.

Econo-Groove: The sound of collective escape

We hear it described in global music discussions as recession pop, a pattern that sees upbeat, euphoric music thrive when life feels heavy, economics stagnate, and collective stress rises. But that term doesn’t capture the South African nuance.

Econo-Groove is local, loud, rhythmic, and spiritual. It’s our answer to bleakness.

When Covid-19 hit in March 2020, South Africa entered one of its most uncertain chapters. Lockdowns closed clubs. Live events were banned. The streets emptied.

What happened instead was that Amapiano exploded digitally, from 34 million on Spotify in 2019 to 102 million by the end of 2020. By 2021, it reached 300 million streams and shattered through into the billions in the years that followed. In 2023 alone, Spotify reported 1.4 billion streams, representing a 5,668% increase since 2018 for the genre.

Music business worldwide

When the world couldn’t gather, South Africans connected through our phones, our playlists, and our dance challenges.

Amapiano became less a genre and more the pulse of a generation that wanted to feel alive while feeling stuck. That’s Econo-Groove: joy as survival.

From townships to global charts

It’s not just local nostalgia. Amapiano didn’t stay in South Africa’s urban neighbourhoods; it travelled the world.

TikTok’s #Amapiano hashtag has been viewed nearly 19 billion times, and artists like Tyla clinched a Grammy with Amapiano-infused sounds, pushing them into mainstream global charts.

But numbers don’t tell the why. They tell the impact. The why rests in emotion: when homes were stressed, jobs uncertain, and futures blurry, we turned inward and louder. We created rhythms that felt like togetherness in isolation, an emotional network stitched with log-drum grooves and deep bass.

Amapiano, alcohol and the festive paradox

And yet, in the same society that found connection through beats, another form of escape has become normalised, alcohol.

In December 2025, South Africans spent an average of around R414m per day on alcohol, with that figure nearly tripling to over R1bn per day in the week between Christmas and New Year.

We cheer and toast and party. We fill dance floors and bottle shops alike. We stream music to feel free, yet we reach for spirits to cope.

There’s a painful duality here: one cultural expression lifts us up, the other puts a gloss over deeper pain.

Alcohol isn’t music. It doesn’t create, express, or connect, it numbs. Amapiano heals by rhythm; alcohol dulls by avoidance. But they both rose in the same climate of anxiety, recession, and social strain, a bitter mirror to how we find relief.

3-Step Afro House: The Next Wave

As Amapiano matured, another sound emerged from the dance culture: 3-Step, a sub-genre of Afro House that infuses faster tempos, sharper groove patterns, and its own signature moves.

It’s the evolution of Econo-Groove, faster, more internationally appealing, and dance-floor-driven. It shows that in creativity, there’s always movement.

Just as Amapiano provided solace through slow, soulful rhythm, 3-Step channels urgency and kinetic energy, perhaps a reflection of a youth impatient for change, opportunity, and escape.

Does poverty make us musical geniuses?

That’s the question many outsiders ask. I reject the romanticisation, but I can’t deny the correlation. Hardship doesn’t make talent. But it pushes it outward. It creates urgency. It forces innovation on the margins.

South African music didn’t rise because we were poor, it rose because we used sound to transform pain into expression.

Our economy is still struggling. Unemployment is high. Inequality persists. But in that landscape, our music became currency, social, emotional, and increasingly global.

What this means for the future

Will Econo-Groove continue? Absolutely. Music always evolves, but the reason it became so dominant has deep roots. If our societal stressors shift through policy reform, economic recovery, and social healing, our music will reflect that too.

But for now, Amapiano and its descendants remain a testament to how South Africa survives, celebrates, and voices itself when the world says silence.

We are a country that dances through storms, not because we don’t feel them, but because we feel them together. And that’s the real magic of Econo-Groove.