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| The duo that make up Schlachthofbronx: Jakob and Benedict. Photo by David Rasche. |
By Refilwe Thobega
Last week Tuesday German DJs Schlachthofbronx played a live set at Kong Club in Rosebank, Joburg as part of their tour through Sub-Saharan Africa.
The event was hosted and organised by the Goethe-Institut. Benjamin Keuffel, PR officer at the institute, said: "The Goethe-Institut is the Federal Republic of Germany’s cultural institute, active worldwide. It promotes the study of German abroad and encourages international cultural exchange. Whenever possible, we organise workshops and get togethers with local artists. For example, in the recent TEN CITIES project this idea has led to a variety of musical collaborations between major cities in Africa and Europe, enabling about 50 DJs, producers and musicians to co-operate and produce music together."
Schlachthofbronx, made up of Jakob (32) and Benedict (34), are known for a very particular sound that is not only influenced by traditional Bavarian music, but also by rave, dancehall, dubstep, baile funk, bounce, and cumbia.
The event in Rosebank was attended by a mixed audience of people interested in innovative electronic music, as well as some media representatives and bloggers.
Introducing themselves Benedict said: "We play music that you could put into a lot of different genres: dancehall, hip hop, techno, dub, footwork, etc. But as we play nearly exclusively our own music, it always is something special and has our own twist on it."
Jakob added: "Basically, we ‘re in the studio during the week, producing new tracks, and do a lot of cooking in our off time. And you know, the usual..."
The guys are both from Munich, Germany. "It’s a pretty nice and wealthy small city. So growing up there was pretty standard for Germany" said Jakob. He added that they knew each other for a long time because they were in the same circle of friends. Then in 2008 they got into talking music and started to work on some stuff together."
About the event, the guys said: "We were happy some friends and people turned up. We even had die-hard fans driving to the Rosebank event from soweto, so it was good to hangout as well."
When asked about what they enjoyed and hated about what they did, they said: "The best thing about what we do is we get to meet so many different people and get to travel to so many exciting places. That is really rewarding and always mind-opening. The hardest thing is difficult to say, as we know our 'job' is a pretty nice one as we are able to do what we love and make a living out of it. Maybe the actual travelling, like sitting in an overbooked early morning plane after you just got from a club playing, heading out to the next thing without sleep or food, sometimes can get a little demanding, but it’s part of the whole greater thing so we will never complain."
About their thoughts on Mzansi and the Rosebank event Jakob said: "We actually played in Bassline in 2009, together with a friend we collaborated with, spoek mathambo. So it was really nice coming back to SA and Joburg. We love the city, the food and the scene."
After the SA event, The DJs are travelling to Yaoundé, Cameroon, then to Kampala, Uganda. Then they will be going to end the tour in Nairobi before heading back to the festival season in Europe.
"The tour has been great so far. It’s an amazing journey. You can get our album as a free download via www.raveandromance.com. No strings attached. Just because we love you," the happy duo said.
*This article was published on Channel24.co.za on 18 May 2015
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