Background: Boston-born, Joburg-raised twins who turned party culture into a movement
Major League DJz are identical twins Banele and Bandile Mbere. Born in Boston while their anti-apartheid activist family lived in exile, they were raised in Johannesburg after the transition to democracy—absorbing American hip-hop alongside South African jazz, kwaito and pop. Those biographical details matter: the cross-Atlantic upbringing shaped their instinct for curation and collaboration, and it explains why their shows have always felt like culture hubs as much as parties. Early on they cut their teeth as event promoters and hip-hop DJs, building the Major League Gardens concert brand and aligning with “New Age Kwaito” around figures like Cassper Nyovest and Riky Rick, before eventually stepping into the studio themselves. That combination—youth-party know-how plus a crate of rap and kwaito—set the table for their amapiano era.
From hip-hop to amapiano: why the switch stuck
By the late 2010s the twins were fixtures in South Africa’s hip-hop circuit, but they were already experimenting with dance grooves. In interviews they’ve described the jump as both emotional and strategic: they were pulled by dance music’s “feeling” and the energy they saw on South African floors, then pushed by a hip-hop scene that felt constricted. The pivot wasn’t painless—“crossing to amapiano was hectic,” they told Nigeria’s Cool FM in 2021—but they doubled down with mixes, radio ambitions and new studio partnerships. The payoff is public record: by 2023 they were collaborating with Major Lazer on the Piano Republik album and leading festival tents with full-fat amapiano sets. The timeline reads like a textbook genre transition: test mixes, lock the sound with core producers, then scale via touring and broadcast.
Balcony Mix Africa: a lockdown idea that became a world-touring platform
When South Africa locked down in 2020, the brothers started filming rooftop sets to keep audiences dancing at home. That series—Balcony Mix Africa—grew into an export engine for the sound, and a blueprint for filmed DJ culture out of Africa. Apple Music’s curator page for Balcony Mix Africa traces the origin directly to the tightest 2020 restrictions; The New Yorker later singled out the twins as amapiano’s most visible ambassadors on YouTube.
Spotify’s newsroom has also pointed to the Major League “live balcony mix” moments as emblematic of how the genre went global during the pandemic. The numbers are visible on their channel: early “Sunrise Quarantine” episodes drew millions, and the 2025 B2B with Kelvin Momo shot past 1.5 million views within months—proof that long-form, private-school piano can perform at pop scale when captured properly.
Tours (2025): club takeovers, major festivals and a busy trans-Atlantic schedule
In 2025, Major League DJz turned the filmed momentum into a dense run of headline shows and festival slots. Spring opened with a two-night KOKO Electronic takeover in London (April 11–12). They then crossed the Atlantic for a late-night “Balcony Mix NYC” in the main hall at Knockdown Center, Maspeth (May 31), with announcements mirrored by the venue, event microsite and socials. Summer dates stretched across North America—Austin (July 20), Houston (July 19) and San Francisco’s Audio (July 25)—before a Scandinavian peak at Roskilde Festival (July 5), where the official lineup page billed them as amapiano standard-bearers. August brought island energy in Mykonos (Aug 21) before more European festival rotations. The routing shows a duo equally at home in dedicated dance venues and headline festival environments, with residency-style brand shows (“Balcony Mix”) anchoring the calendar in key cities.
Releases and collaborations to know (2021–2025)
Their amapiano discography spreads across their own catalog and high-profile collabs. The 2021 album Outside landed via emPawa, cementing a versatile piano template with features from across Africa. In 2023 they teamed with Major Lazer on Piano Republik (and later a remix suite), a cross-scene moment that put amapiano on dance music’s center stage. 2023 also brought the New Beginnings project under the Balcony Mix Africa banner with Murumba Pitch. In 2025 they pivoted into attention-grabbing singles and high-visibility features: “Come With Me” with Jorja Smith (released March 21), Thukuthela/Jazzworx/Sykes’ “uMA weNGANE” featuring Major League (July 11), and an Avicii & Elle King collaboration on “Let’s Ride Away (Major League DJz VIP Club Room)” (July 4). The sequence—album foundation, cross-genre headline project, then big-name singles—has kept them in both club crates and mainstream feeds.
Signature setcraft: log-drum story arcs and private-school pacing
On stage, the brothers favor long blends and patient builds. A typical set begins with soft pads, piano voicings and featherweight percussion, then slowly introduces rounded log-drum phrases that bloom rather than slam. You’ll hear private-school piano aesthetics—lush chords, vocal snippets and restrained drums—offset by sudden pushes into harder, bacardi-flavored sections when the room needs a jolt. That dynamic is why their Balcony sessions translate so well to festivals: the storytelling keeps generalist crowds engaged while the bass architecture satisfies dedicated amapiano heads. Their filmed mixes also serve as discovery engines for IDs from peers (Kelvin Momo, Murumba Pitch, Tyler ICU), which is part of why their uploads have so much replay value on YouTube.
Record-setting stamina: the 75-hour Balcony Mix Xperience
Long before 2025’s festival blitz, Major League DJz used endurance and spectacle to draw the world’s gaze to amapiano. In September 2022 they staged a special edition of the Balcony Mix Xperience at Katy’s Palace in Johannesburg, performing for 75 hours straight. Industry outlets reported the duo’s claim to a world record for longest back-to-back DJ set, and Atlantic Records’ bio notes the feat as a milestone in their rise. Beyond the headline, the marathon showed how the twins blend showmanship with community—fans cycled in and out while the duo kept the groove unbroken. As a publicity move for a still-emerging global genre, it worked.
Why the story makes sense: promoters’ brains, DJs’ ears, producers’ curiosity
The Mbere brothers’ route—promoter roots to DJ prominence to filmed-mix institution—explains their durability. They know how to build a night (a promoter’s instinct), how to read rooms across cultures (a DJ’s muscle), and how to seed new songs into the ecosystem (a producer’s curiosity). Lockdown gave them a broadcast platform; the post-pandemic years gave them the global stage. By 2025 they can announce a Balcony Mix in New York, headline KOKO two nights running, appear on the bill at Roskilde, and still feed the scene with singles that pair amapiano DNA with pop and house collaborators worldwide. If you’re mapping how amapiano became a festival language, Major League DJz are one of the clearest through-lines.
Listen & watch
- Album: Outside (2021).
- Album: Piano Republik with Major Lazer (2023).
- Single: “Come With Me” feat. Jorja Smith (March 21, 2025).
- Single: “uMA weNGANE” with Thukuthela, Jazzworx & Sykes (July 11, 2025).
- Collab: Avicii & Major League DJz “Let’s Ride Away (VIP Club Room)” (July 4, 2025).
