Distruction Boyz On about their love for Gqom

Durban-based dance duo Distruction Boyz nearly shut down the internet on Friday with the release of their highly-anticipated debut album Gqom is The Future‚ something that was all part of their master plan.
“We were blown away with response to the album but it was really what we expected. It all went according to plan‚” the group’s Thobane ‘Que’ Mgobozi said.
Que and his bandmate Zipho ‘Goldmax’ Mthembu set the ambitious goal to become the first act to reach gold certification for a gqom album. Gqom is a genre of dance music popular in Durban‚ only made mainstream recently.
“We have only just released the physical copies of the album so it’s a little too early to tell how far we are from reaching gold but we have no doubt that we are going to go gold and even platinum. People love our music and our digital sales have been amazing. We are number one across the country‚” Que said.
The group were instrumental in taking the genre out of the Durban townships to become the most exciting sound in the country‚ beating out hip-hop‚ afro-dancehall and reggae at the recent Red Bull Culture Clash.
But it wasn’t easy for the duo who had to convince artists‚ music bosses and even their parents to take a chance on them.
“My parents weren’t too happy about me wanting to do music because they are academics but I did what they wanted from me and finished school and now they don’t mind what I do. It’s not so bad now but we also used to get a lot of questions when we started out‚ like: ‘who are these guys and what are they doing?’ and ‘what is gqom?’ It was only after we started making music for other artists that things got easier‚” he said.
The group were discovered by Big Nuz’s Mampintsha and were soon recruited to work on a track he was producing for Babes Wodumo’s hit track‚ Wololo.
“We were releasing music and he heard our songs. He gave us a call one random day and was like: ‘hey guys‚ this is Mampintsha. Please come through to the studio and work on something’. That is how we worked on Wololo.”
He said that the track‚ which has become one of the most popular songs ever recorded in Mzansi‚ took just an hour to put together.
“In our arsenal‚ we have so many beats so it wasn’t too difficult to put a beat over the lyrics. After an hour it was done. We all knew that it would be a big song but no one was expecting it to be that massive‚” he added.