Black Coffee

Black Coffee earned a Grammy Award for Best Dance/Electronic Album as part of a career that has taken South African house music to international clubs and festival stages. Born Nkosinathi Innocent Maphumulo on 11 March 1976, the Durban-born DJ, producer and songwriter began his career in 1994. He gained wider recognition after taking part in the 2004 Red Bull Music Academy.

Maphumulo's early musical grounding included the study of music theory, which informed his ear for melody and arrangement. After leaving school, he and two friends worked as backing vocalists for Zulu folk singer Madala Kunene before forming Shana, short for Simply Hot And Naturally African. His work as Black Coffee drew on African rhythmic traditions while bringing house, jazz and R&B elements into electronic production.

He founded Soulistic Music to issue his 2005 self-titled debut, Black Coffee, an album that incorporated R&B and jazz. That year he also presented a club-focused reinterpretation of Hugh Masekela's 1974 song “Stimela,” recasting its jazz source with electronic accordion sounds. Later albums include Have Another One (2007), Home Brewed (2009), Africa Rising (2012), Pieces of Me (2015), Music Is King (2018) and Subconsciously (2021). Across his career, he has released nine studio albums.

Black Coffee's productions and DJ sets have moved between house-oriented music and jazz-inflected material, with a focus on groove, vocal collaborations and African musical references. He has collaborated with David Guetta and Delilah Montagu. His awards include eight South African Music Awards, four DJ Awards, two Metro FM Awards and the Grammy for Best Dance/Electronic Album.