Gqom
The 7 Best Gqom
Tracks of All Time
Durban's answer to kwaito: a broken, off-grid drum pattern with no four-to-the-floor kick at all, built on cracked software and traded by WhatsApp. Raw, minor-key and physically overwhelming on a big system.
- Origin
- Durban, South Africa, 2011
- Tempo
- 120–130 BPM
- Also known as
- gqom oh, durban sound, sgubhu
- Tracks
- 7
- Updated
- 2026-08-29
Listen to the whole list
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Curators on Gqom
This ranking is the whole scene arguing. These are individuals who gave us their own Gqom list, and a reason for every record on it.
Number 1: DJ Lag / Ice Drop
2016 · Goon Club Allstars
Written at seventeen and the first gqom track to get a video. Three elements, no resolution, and a low end that makes the case for the whole genre in ninety seconds.
Also on The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
Number 2: Babes Wodumo featuring Mampintsha / Wololo
2016
Gqom's first mainstream hit and the moment Durban's underground reached national radio. The vocal is a taunt, and the beat refuses to help her out even once.
Also on The Waxonia Desk — Out of Durban
Number 3: Rudeboyz featuring TD Snax / Mercedes
2015 · Goon Club Allstars
The record that carried the sound to London. Sparse to the point of severity, and the first many people outside South Africa heard of any of this.
Also on The Waxonia Desk — Out of Durban
Number 4: Distruction Boyz featuring Benny Maverick and Dladla Mshunqisi / Omunye
2017
The genre's biggest commercial moment, and a credit dispute: DJ Lag pursued the case and won a songwriting credit. Both facts belong in the record's history.
Also on The Waxonia Desk — Out of Durban
Number 5: DJ Lag / Trip to New York
2017
Released first over WhatsApp, which is how most gqom actually travels. The most exportable thing Durban made, and it never needed a label to prove it.
Number 6: Griffit Vigo / Come to Durban
2016 · Gqom Oh!
From the compilation that gave the sound a name abroad. Vigo is the producer's producer here — harder, stranger and less interested in a hook than anyone else on this list.
Also on The Waxonia Desk — Out of Durban
Number 7: Sho Madjozi / John Cena
2019
Gqom's rhythmic ideas turned into outright pop, in Xitsonga, about a wrestler. Included because a genre that could not do this would have stayed in Durban.
Also on The Waxonia Desk — Out of Durban