What Does Miami Bass Have to Do With South Africa’s Gqom?
Miami bass and gqom – hardly connected, are they? Actually, the bass-heavy styles of music do share some similarities.
Bass, cars and South Florida
Miami bass emerged in South Florida in the mid-1980s, influenced electro, hip-hop, Caribbean music, and the booming bass of loud car stereos. Its sound is based on fast rhythms, 808 kicks and bass that could fill a vehicle. By the late 80s and 90s, car audio had become part of the scene itself, with customized systems and sound competitions blasting music loud enough to be heard three or four streets over.
Durban had its own thing
Gqom developed much later, emerging in Durban, South Africa around 2012 from local house, kwaito and township party culture. Its rhythm is usually broken rather than four-on-the-floor; sparse percussion, heavy kicks, ominous synths and repetition create a different kind of tension than Miami bass.
Gqom has been described as the sound of Durban’s parties and streets, partly because producers used local taxi drivers to help spread the word about new tracks. Taxis were an important platform for producers who struggled to get their music played in clubs.
Public spaces
Jubilee is an artist who grew up in South Florida, on Miami bass and other bass-heavy genres. She told DJmag.com that in the 2020s car music culture was still thriving. (See the “Motor Bass” feature about car culture, Miami bass, trap, hip-hop, gqom and other styles.) In "the right little pocket" in New York on a weekend, said Jubilee, music brings everyone together.
During this same decade, Florida’s betting landscape changed significantly with sports-betting rules changing markedly in 2023, when the Seminole Tribe’s Hard Rock Bet service returned after a nearly two-year legal interruption. Legal statewide online betting is tightly controlled through the Tribe’s Hard Rock Bet operation.
Real-money online casino gambling remains illegal in Florida, though tribal casinos and licensed facilities offer legal in-person casino-style gaming. If Miami residents travelled to South Africa to experience gqom first-hand, they might also try other casino games and play 777 Strike slot online or similar.
Miami’s car culture made the vehicle a mobile listening room. Producers could make bass-heavy tracks with woofers in mind, and drivers used their systems to advertise their cars, but also their taste and status. Local Miami producer Bass Mekanik once told Electronic Beats that when Miami bass grew in the 80s, it was like a “party on wheels”.
Photo/Joakim Honkasalo/Unsplash
In Durban, many people relied on taxis for everyday transport, so the vehicles provided a moving audience for music that was not getting support from established clubs or radio. Gqom producers like DJ Lag and Citizen Boy gave their tracks to drivers, whose sound systems helped circulate them through the city. Taxi competition could also give drivers a reason to seek out the newest and loudest material. Producer Menzi said the drivers “wanted to show off” their cars’ loudness.
Gqom is still in the charts
It might’ve been around for a while now, but gqom is still heard in South Africa’s charts and in the clubs. Bandcamp reporter Mike Steyels recently described gqom as “a part of daily life.” Regional variations such as CPT gqom or “gospel gqom” (from Cape Town) have grown as gqom has spread far outside Durban. Steyels wrote that its roots will always remain in the city, but the record label Unticipated Soundz was quoted as saying that gqom was now “a global language”.
Gqom has evolved beyond its raw, heavy Durban roots, with as many as ten subgenres (depending on who you ask). Early expansions include sgubhu (also called dombolo or idombolo), a smoother, more melodic variant. Newer forms like uThayela embrace rougher, aggressive textures, while isqinsi experiments with heavier, stripped-back rhythms and diverse electronic elements.
The collective Omgoqa have said that innovation keeps the culture fresh and gives younger artists room to create, provided gqom’s foundational sound and identity remain respected.
Two scenes… one bass-heavy idea?
Miami bass grew with privately owned cars and the culture of customizing vehicles. Gqom’s grew partly thanks to taxis. One scene turned personal vehicles into sound systems; the other used transport networks to spread new music around.
But the musical similarities are more straightforward. Both styles prioritize drums, repetition and low-end impact, and both work best when played loudly. Yet gqom’s broken rhythms and spacious arrangements give it a different structure from the quicker, more overtly party-driven patterns of classic Miami bass.
Arguably what connects them most strongly is the idea that electronic music doesn’t have to stay inside clubs. In both cities, transport and everyday listening helped shape how a local sound became a world-renowned scene.