Inside Durban's Gqom Warehouse Revival
No dress code, no VIP section, no mercy. We spent a weekend in eThekwini's loudest rooms.
At 1am the bass hits the corrugated roof so hard that dust rains down on the crowd. Nobody cares. This is Gqom in its natural habitat — and after a quiet few years, the warehouses are full again.
A new wave of selectors
A crop of young DJs from Umlazi, KwaMashu and Pinetown are reworking the broken-beat blueprint with sharper drums and darker vocal chops.
"Gqom never died. It just went back home to get stronger."
Expect this scene to dominate summer. Our full Gqom chart drops every Monday.