“Major League DJz are positioned as the frontrunners in Amapiano’s shift from a South African sensation to a cornerstone of global dance music.” – BILLBOARD
“A new form of South African dance music is thriving. A pair of twin brothers, known as Major League DJz, want the rest of the world to pay attention.” – THE NEW YORKER
“Major League DJz are bringing Amapiano to a global stage” – HYPEBEAST
“Major League Djz’s game-changing and record-setting party series and live stream Balcony Mix
has been at the forefront of Amapiano’s global takeover.” – FORBES
NORTH AMERICAN LIVE DATES INCLUDE HEADLINE SETS AND EAGERLY AWAITED FESTIVAL APPEARANCES
The African dance music sensations Major League DJz have shared their soulful new Amapiano single, “All Night Long” featuring Elaine and Yumbs available now via Atlantic Records. “This song is a celebration of black love,” says Major League DJz. “You know when you’re in love and feel like it’s a dream you don’t want to wake up from? That’s the song. Whimsical romance, for the ones that love love.”
Major League DJz – a.k.a. identical twin brothers Bandile and Banele Mbere – will celebrate with a wide-ranging series of North American live dates, including festival performances at Toronto, ON’s Electric Island (August 11), Nashville, TN’s Deep Tropics Music Art & Style Festival (August 19), Detroit, MI’s Afro Nation Detroit (August 20), Seattle, WA’s Bumbershoot (September 2), and San Francisco, CA’s Portola Festival (September 30). Additional dates will be announced. For updates, visit www.majorleaguedjz.com.
MAJOR LEAGUE DJz
NORTH AMERICAN TOUR 2023
AUGUST
11 – Toronto, ON – Electric Island *
12 – Winnipeg, MB – Exchange Event Centre
19 – Nashville, TN – Deep Tropics Music Art & Style Festival *
19 – Nashville, TN – Deep Tropics Late Night @ The Office
20 – Detroit, MI – Afro Nation Detroit *
SEPTEMBER
1 – Dallas, TX – It’ll Do
2 – Seattle, WA – Bumbershoot *
3 – Austin, TX – The Concourse Project
16 – Johannesburg, SA – The Balcony Mix Africa
29 – Vancouver, BC – Celebrities
30 – San Francisco, CA – Portola Festival *
* FESTIVAL APPEARANCE
Hailed by Forbes for being “at the forefront of Amapiano’s global takeover,” Major League DJz are crafting the sound of the future with an exciting blend of immersive African sonics and revolutionary production. For more than a decade, the duo have played a critical role in rewiring modern dance music, experimenting with elements from hip-hop, Kwaito, Afrobeats, and Amapiano. Thanks to their throbbing brand of party-starting, genre-blurring music, Major League DJz have achieved cultural icon status in the African continent and around the world, spanning collaborations with Major Lazer, Diplo, Black Coffee, and more; show-stopping sets on international stages from Coachella to London’s famed O2 Brixton Academy; and an array of accolades including a prestigious BET Award nomination for “Best International Act.”
Born in exile to a family of anti-apartheid campaigners, the Mbere brothers grew up in Boston, MA, where their family moved in the same social circle as legendary South African musicians like Hugh Masakela and Miriam Makeba. These associations provided the twins with an unconventional education on South African jazz and popular African music, sounds which they paired with the hip-hop that they loved in America.
Upon the end of South Africa’s apartheid regime, the brothers returned to their home country and began building a platform as top party organizers, hosting special edition events in honor of such western stars as Akon, Fat Joe, and 50 Cent. Eventually, the Mberes evolved into music creation, arriving in the early 2010s with a series of dance-ready hip-hop-influenced mixtapes that melded their love for rap culture with the swaggering dance music of South Africa. These early drops won them a core following, as did a culture-shifting series of annual live events dubbed Major League Gardens, drawing over 20K fans each year through 2019.
Always innovative, Major League DJz embraced the homebrewed sounds of Kwaito and Amapiano just as the latter was rising to national popularity in early 2020. The duo launched their “Balcony Mix” series during the pandemic, earning millions of global views with live DJ sets at spectacular locations around the world from Africa to Amsterdam to Australia. In 2022, Major League DJz broke records with “The Balcony Mix Xperience: The Book Of The Music Journey,” a celebratory event which saw the twins perform a whopping 75-hour DJ set – the longest duo DJ set in history. The duo made history again this summer as the first Amapiano act to host and sell out a residency in London at the Here @ Outernet venue.
Now, with the release of “All Night Long (Ft. Elaine & Yumbs),” Major League DJz continue on their avowed path to celebrate African Culture while making the world dance, showcasing the beauty of Amapiano and more with trailblazing invention and game-changing energy.
CONNECT WITH MAJOR LEAGUE DJZ:
