Authenticity as viewed from the Producer

The aim of this thesis is to understand how Netherlands based, African Electronic Dance Music artists perceive of authenticity in the context of category spanning. The research was conducted through semi-structured interviews with 7 expert respondents, each of which is a professional within the field of African Electronic Dance Music. By building on pre-existing literature surrounding the concepts of genre, niche, category spanning and authenticity. This research revealed new insights into how they apply to African electronic dance music and it’s position in the Netherlands, showcasing the difference between each of their variations; how category spanning producers in the Netherlands formulate a ‘sound colour’ in order to prevent the backlash most often associated with the notion of category spanning; and finally how producers view authenticity from an intrinsic personal standpoint. This thesis builds on previous literature by taking the novel standpoint of viewing authenticity from the perspective of the producers themselves rather than from the perspective of audience members and critics. Firstly, African electronic dance music is split between the genres of amapiano, afrohouse and gqom. Each of these genres exist within their own spheres in terms of there development within the Netherlands yet share a variety of similarities in terms of competition and oversaturation within the marketspace. Alongside this, since these genres still consist within the electronic music world, they are able to be blended and developed with other genres of electronic dance music. The blending of these different genres encapsulates a producer’s ability to category span. What has been most insightful with this ability to category span is the ease and frequency with which the artist in this study do it. This positions producers in this field as global leaders in category spanning as they intrinsically have an understanding of how properly category span that aligns with previous research. Where this thesis treads new grounds, is by examining authenticity with regards to these genres and ability to category span from the perspective of the producers themselves where all previous research has viewed this from an audience perspective. What has been discovered, is that producers hold the concept of authenticity close to their heart, as such, not relying on audiences and critics to validate their actions as authentic.