Though South African DJ and production duo Malumz on Decks— Oscar Nyati and Mandla Mtshali—have been producing music together since 2014, their initial dream was to remain behind the scenes. “When we started, we wanted to open up a record label to recognise the guys that were actually featured on every song that was playing on radio, but didn't actually get the recognition,” Mandla tells Apple Music. “We wanted to be the guys to say, ‘Look, guys, we can make sure that we plug you on radio, instead of you guys making music, and selling it to the guys, and the guys are being known, and you forever stay underground as ghost producers. That was the initial plan. However, the artists were not patient. So we ended up as artists ourselves.” “Oscar started doing his music, and I started as Mandla the DJ, and, we did individual songs and it went well,” Mandla continues. “And I think six, seven months down the line, we decided, ‘Why don't we just do one album, the both of us?’ As we were travelling, we didn't have a name, but somehow we kept on calling ourselves Malumz. But Malumz this, Malumz this. Malumz that, Malumz this. We went to the hood, people would be calling us ‘Malumz, Malumz’. And that's how it started.” Taking the role as “malumes” (“uncles”) seriously, the duo approached each song with two intentions—creating hits for the streets, and tapping into unknown artists and producers. A breakthrough came in 2018 with “Shay’inumber”, their collab with Gino Vince and Mr Vince. “We plugged Gino Brown in interviews for the song, everybody—even the guys that we were dancing with. Our mission is to make sure that everyone that we touched in their lives, we want to see them somewhere.” That mission continues with 2024’s uber-collaborative Uzuri. Taking its name from the Swahili word for “beauty”, the album sees the duo enter their three-step era. “The sound is growing in South Africa,” Mandla explains. “We heard it from Thakzin. For me, he's the founder. So we sat down with him, he showed us, ‘Hit this and that.’ Then we worked with MÖRDA. Oscar was very passionate to say, ‘Whatever we do with the sound, let's keep it how we started. Let's not change much about it.’ It's a fusion of Afro-house and ’piano. There's a new wave in town, and we just got to make sure that we sail on the wave—and it shall take you guys places. That's what we believe.” Below, Mandla talks through Uzuri, track by track. “Siyobonana” (feat. Pixie L) “The inspiration behind the song was very sad because we had lost one of our mentors, and one of our best friends, DJ Bongani Mfihlo. He passed on while we were still in studio recording. When we are in studio, we guide our vocalists—‘This is the message. You write the song.’ Pixie L came into studio, and we were so emotional [that night]. I think Oscar shared a tear as well that day, which is good. When you are listening to a recording and it actually hits you so hard that you share a tear, then it tells you that that's what you're going to transfer to the people definitely when they hear the song. We are versatile; we are not monotonous. We’ll give you Afro, we'll give you three-step. We'll give you deep house kind of feeling. We'll give you pretty much everything.” “Teka” [Malumz on Decks & Mpho.Wav] “When we released ‘Teka’, we gave it to the DJs because we wanted it to be a street song chasing the festive season. We also give it to the compilers in the radio industry; it came in in November, just when they were about to close for submissions. We dropped the song; they took it in, and yeah, it caught waves and everybody loved it. We met with Mpho.Wav, and we were like, 'Dude, we've been telling you you need to step into three step.’ And he's like, 'But guys, this thing is difficult.’ We're like, 'We already have a foundation of a song that we would think you could actually tap into.' Eventually when he came back, we just had the words ‘Teka’, and we're like, 'Is this somebody singing ‘Teka thatha’? What's happening here?' Because it's just a repetition of one thing, ‘teka’ and ‘thatha’, meaning the same thing in different languages. And when we asked him, 'Dude, who's singing here?’ And he was like, 'It's me. I was experimenting.’ That was the beginning of us and three-step.” “S'vuthela iNumber” (feat. Murumba Pitch) [JnrSA Remake] “We did the song on our previous album, before COVID. Muruma Pitch—the guys are hands-on. [Maeywon] was like, 'Guys, I got this and I want to work with you guys, so I don't want this to fail.' They were hungry and they wanted it, and I knew that with the amount of work they were putting in on this song, it was going to be the song for the EP. We released the song. Radio took it in, and people were thinking we were working with Burna Boy. Like, 'Nah, it ain't Burna. These are our boys from South Africa. It's Murumba Pitch.’ That's what we want with our artists. Whoever we tap with, we mess with in studio, trust me, you're going to be known. Recently we like, 'Ah, you know what? Let's make a remix of the song.' We contacted Jnr SA; he’s a great producer, and he’s worked with people like Darque on other three-step projects. And he also has his own three-step project that we really encouraged him to drop.” “Skontiri” “Our titles to these songs, they're weird. I think we were driving to a gig, and there were so many potholes on the roads. We were listening to it while driving and thinking, 'What do we call this?' And I'm like, 'Let's call this song Skontiri because damn, we've been repeating it and we've been tacking potholes and all of that.' And I think that's how it stuck, because every time we listened to it, we would remember the roads when we were going to play in Newcastle and we had to travel through Standerton. There's no road there, and the song kept on playing, but we’re struggling to dance to the song because we’re ducking potholes. DJs loved it. We're like, 'If DJs love it, then, hey, the people, are going to love it.’" “Hamba Nami” (feat. Dearson) “Dearson has been dope with his vocals. We met him when we did one of our events, and he was like, 'Guys, waste no time. Send me something today, I'll give you something tomorrow.' And trust me, a day was enough. I woke up in the morning having a new song. I'm like, 'What? If that's how you operate, my man, you are on another level.' That’s how ‘Hamba Nami’ was born. I love the energy from Dearson.” “Vaccine” (feat. Kitchen Mess) “Kitchen Mess, what a guy. I don't know how to even classify him. He's somebody that when he sings, he just touches you, man. We were at one of Shimza's events, and the guy was playing after us and we played the song ‘Vaccine’ as our last track. Guess what Kitchen Mess does? He jumps on our song. Instead of him playing his own song, he's testing his mic. As he tests his mic, he goes and makes these chants. And we're like, 'What? Are you hearing this?' Oscar's like, 'No ways, man. Listen to this. This is already a song.' I'm like, 'Hey, man, if you feel it, I feel it. Let's get him in studio.’ He came into studio same day and he was like, 'Guys, I need to go. I'm going to Botswana. I'm out of time.' We're like, 'No, man, we don't need much from you. You don't have to write anything, you know? We just want those chants.' And he gave us that. And he sat in studio, he gave us the chants, and we just guided him like, 'Everybody knows you're doing this kind of chants. Let's do it differently. It's your voice, play with it.' And that was our advice. And he played with it, he played with it. We called it ‘Vaccine’—It’s going to heal people. It's going to bring you back to life, it's going to resuscitate you.”