A man on a musical mission, we link up with Ameen Harron as he sounds off on his origin story, collabs he’s had and what fills his soul with dread.

When Ameen Harron was a boy, growing up in Wynberg, he suffered from insomnia, so his dad would take him to the corner shop to play games until he’d grown tired of the repetitive sounds and flashing 8-bit pixels.

Today, things are different, and Ameen will only go to bed at around sunrise after spending the night creating soundscapes and staring at a screen.

Arkham Studios Was Born

He recently bought the house next door to his Wynberg childhood home on his dad’s advice (“Do you want to pay off someone else’s bond or your own?”). Despite having a fully-functioning studio in his parents’ place, Ameen has dedicated about half of the open-plan living area to a second studio set-up.

“If you’d told me a serial killer lived here, I would have believed you,” says Ameen, giving us a tour of his new home-slashed studio in Cape Town’s southern suburbs. “It looked haunted. We called it the trap house.” After renovations, Ameen invited Good Hope FM DJ, The Humble Lord Veezus (referred to as “V”), to live with him. He explains how their friendship goes way back to when Ameen would bunk school to hang out at Paul Bothner Music.

“V’s dad was working there in charge of the production section, and there was this one keyboard that I’d play almost every day.” Like that scene from Wayne’s World (“It will be mine. Oh yes. It will be mine.”), Ameen eventually did buy himself the Roland Fantom-X, a workstation and synthesizer, which takes pride of place among his other gear and collectibles that include Thor’s hammer, Hulk’s fist and Iron Man’s helmet.

Drinking from a Stark Enterprises coffee mug, Ameen explains why he’s obsessed with Iron Man paraphernalia. “I like the way that Iron Man doesn’t have a superpower. His superpower is his mind. I’m really fascinated by human potential. How a man can use it to stand alongside those with superpowers. That’s really special.

A self-described geek, Ameen named his space Arkham Studios, because they’re “a bunch of geeks making funny noises in a padded room.” Like the DC prison Arkham Asylum, when Ameen enters his space, his mania is contained. Outside of it, just talking about music will cause his eyes to glaze over, his delivery speeds up and his mania grows until he can release the sound in his head.

Finding A Unique Sound

“For the longest time I’ve been exploring and seeking our sound. I wanted to craft something that was distinctly ours.  I’ve been learning about music from different cultures – how drum rhythms work and how unique our African rhythm is. The signatures shouldn’t work but they do,” he says.

“Amapiano is a polyrhythm where the drum pattern may seem like it’s keeping a 4/4 count, but the long drums aren’t on beat and the base lines are hitting in random places. I’ve worked in many genres but Amapiano is hands-down the most exciting because of its complexity,” the maestro explains.

For his latest release Tonight, Ameen blends his R&B-influenced style with Amapiano – the South African deep house, jazz and lounge hybrid that’s gone on to inspire the likes of Drake and Beyoncé.

For his appreciation for all music, he credits his family: “How many moms do you know who went to the Linkin Park concert? And my cool older cousins would share mix tapes filled with hip-hop and take me to watch the battles that used to happen in our neighbourhood. My uncle introduced me to the most amazing soul band from SA, Pacific Express with Zayn Adams. I thought, ‘how are people not sampling this?”

How It All Started

With such a wealth of knowledge, Ameen started DJing when he was only 12. This taught him what has arguably been his most valuable lesson – how to read a room. “That, and always play for the ladies. Then, once you know who you’re playing for, you need to know what to play. You need to be able to recognise a hit if you want to make one.”  After he’d saved up enough money to buy a set of turntables, Ameen realised that, while he could mix different sounds together, it was what he wanted to do.

And so he started playing with different software on the computer – first DJing virtually then eventually producing his own beats. From playing other people’s sounds to searching for one of his own, Ameen has always used music to connect with others. His list of collaborators is long, and playing a game of word association, we conducted a stream-of-consciousness exercise where we asked him to respond to each name with whatever came into his head.

Sketchy Bongo

“He’s like a brother to me and is now the head of music for TikTok Africa. An Indian kid from Durban running circles around everyone else. His focus is now on pop music, but the stuff nobody hears. Wow, the man’s a genius. He’s one of my few producer friends who isn’t genre specific, and we’ll often share mixes and swap projects.”

Shekhinah

“She invited me to her gig and afterwards wanted to go to my studio at like 11pm. I had a guitar line from a friend and we put these big-ass horns around it. It’s actually one of my favourite things I ever produced. I feel it could be in a movie rather than on the radio. But her label couldn’t see it working on the rest of the album.”

Locnville

“We met through Lakota Silva who was dating Brian at the time. We got quite close because they would always make a point of getting everyone around them so intoxicated. They’re the type of people who get offended if you buy your own drinks. They feel nothing to run up a R60k bar tab.”

AKA

“In 2010 I was sponsored by a hip-hop clothing brand called Head Honcho and they set us up in a studio before AKA had any big tracks. I think it was a shoot for Hype Magazine. That day I met the real AKA. Forget the ego and everything you see now. The man I met that day was such an endearing, humble guy. The amount of confidence that guy has now, though! Like, buy a bottle of bubbly and walk around the club being your own party.”

DANNY K

He was dating Lee-Anne Liebenberg at the time and, I’m not going to lie, she was treating me like a kid and I was loving every minute of it. ‘Oh my darling, you have sore throat? Let me make you some special tea.’ It was so funny, we’d be working in the studio all day and she’d be bringing me snacks, and nothing for Danny.”

Proverb

“What a legend. Through Skwatta Kamp I ended up making beats for ProVerb. I was trying to do the J Dilla sound without sampling so he didn’t have to pay sample credits. If a client likes a specific sound, I can study the chord progression, the sound selection, how the music works, dissect it and make something without having to sample it.”

Jimmy Nevis

“When he came out I was dating his manager. I ended up working on Balloon and a bunch of other tracks. I think there were 11 on the album. I put Kwesta on Balloon. Funnily enough, I’m actually working on an Amapiano mix for this now.”

YoungstaCPT

“I’ve known YoungstaCPT my whole life. We grew up together. He fell off his bicycle and I carried him and his bike back home – Youngsta told me that! I don’t remember it but he remembers everything. That’s why he doesn’t have to write down his lyrics. It’s all in his head. And he always comes to the studio rehearsed. He’s the most professional artist I’ve ever worked with. When I record Youngsta he doesn’t make any mistakes. All his ad libs, even a laugh, whatever – stuff that someone will usually make up on the fly – Youngsta has that ready to go and in the right place. The first 30 minutes to an hour you’re recording. The rest of the session you’re having the most insightful conversation of your life. He’s such an interesting conversationalist. I feel every conversation I’ve had with Youngsta is something I’ve ended up growing from.”

Nadia Jaftha

“I met Nadia when I had more followers than her. Anyway, I got a call a few years back when she released her first song Paradise. There was a controversy because people didn’t believe she’d sung it, even though she’s been a trained singer since she was six. Whenever I work with a vocalist, I make sure I know what their natural range is and then find the key that they’re most fluent in. We knocked Nadia’s takes out in like an hour. She smacked her vocal recording. I actually posted a video of a raw untreated vocal on Twitter, so people could hear it with no effects.”

DJ HI-TEK

“He’s one of my mentors and I got to spend a lot of time with him at his studio in Rondebosch. When I was in the studio with Hi-Tek, Diplo phoned him looking for a dentist to take out his front teeth, like: ‘Yo, I’m inspired by this Cape Town culture. Ready D just took me drifting and now I want a passion gap.’ He didn’t do it; instead, he took shrooms and went shark cage diving.”