BET award-winning Ghanaian artiste, Stonebwoy, and South Africa’s Focalistic join forces for the first time on a new Amapiano sound dubbed ‘Ariba’.
On ‘Ariba’ the duo mixes their familiar cocktail of afrobeats, dancehall, highlife, and bubbly melody influences to craft an up-tempo ode Amapiano sound.
The song is a mash-up of deep house, jazz, and lounge music, with synthesizers, airy pads, and broad percussive basslines. It is characterized by high-pitched piano melodies, Kwaito basslines, low tempo South African house rhythms from the 1990s, and percussions from another local house subgenre called Bacardi.
The track’s cheerful tone stems from a spontaneous weekend journey from South Africa to Ghana on Focalistic’s end, which gave rise to the two African superstars’ latest collaboration. Both men don’t stray far from their catalogues’ mainframe: feel good outputs to score moments of aural escape.
The song video was recorded in Stonebwoy’s native Ghana, at a variety of indoor venues that depict Ghana’s contemporary, dynamic and energetic “dance night culture” towards the end. Stonebwoy and Focalistic also serve us a joyful mood and aesthetic in the official video, created by prolific Rex.
Watch video below;