Spoek Mathambo is a formidable bandleader and genre-blending shape-shifter who's already crested multiple waves that served as prototypes for scene-setting peers in vast area codes. Not one to bother with laurels, let alone rest on them, the Mzansi-born global beat conductor favours creating new lanes and test riding them before moving on to the next thing. His raps, half sung or delivered in his easy-going flow, jive pantsula to the tune of these perilous times. A serial collaborator of note, he puts his obsessive, relentless workmanship on display in projects ranging from late-‘00s electro squelches (Sweat.X, Playdoe), to now-era solo pursuits and outerscape imaginariums of groups like Batuk, where Spoek orchestrates fantastical funk alongside mother-other, Manteiga. Find him performing shamanic rituals in Jozi while plotting his next move, and groove along to definitive albums like 2012’s Father Creeper and 2017’s Mzansi Beat Code to enhance your umswenko-cabulary.